SharpSpring SMS Integration Setup
SharpSpring is a great CRM solution, but doesn’t offer text messaging with its standard service. In this blog post, we will walk through how to add the SharpSpring text messaging integration from Sakari to your SharpSpring CRM account.
The setup takes about five minutes and requires no coding. Once setup, you will be able to automatically trigger personalized text messages to new leads, new form submissions and new SharpSpring accounts.
Why Should You Use SMS with SharpSpring CRM?
Why is text messaging important with SharpSpring? The short answer is because it’s how customers and leads prefer to communicate. Across almost every statistic, customers prefer text messaging:
- Open rates at 90%+
- Almost instant delivery
- Typically read within 90 seconds
- Read rates 5x higher than email
What You'll Need
Before we dive in to the text messaging setup, there are three things you’ll need to start sending text messages from your SharpSpring account:
1.) SharpSpring CRM account
If you don’t have an existing SharpSpring account, you can sign up on at their website here: https://sharpspring.com/
2.) Sakari SMS account
Sakari is the business text messaging service we’re going to use to send SMS from our SharpSpring account. Using Sakari, we can send and receive text messages based on the leads and contacts we have in SharpSpring.
You can sign up for a free Sakari SMS account here: https://sakari.io/signup/
3.) Zapier account
SharpSpring Text Messaging Setup Guide
Step 1
Obtain your SharpSpring API Information
In order to link Sakari SMS to SharpSpring, we need to obtain the SharpSpring API credentials. With this information we can link the two systems using Zapier.
In your SharpSpring account, click the “person” icon on the top right and click the “Settings” link.
Select “API Settings” in left navigation menu under the SharpSpring API header.
Copy both the Account ID and Secret Key (or keep the page open).
Settings Menu
API Settings
SharpSpring API Keys
Step 2
Create a Zapier account
Step 3
Setup the SharpSpring and Sakari Integration
SharpSpring Integration Page
Step 4
SharpSpring Text Messaging Setup
The first step to creating a Zapier Zap is selecting which App will be the “Trigger” and the trigger option.
In our example, we want to send a text message when a new SharpSpring lead is created. So we will select a Trigger of SharpSpring, with a trigger option of “New Lead.” Within SharpSpring, there are six available trigger options, these are listed below. Other popular examples would be New Form Fill-Out Events and New Page Visit Events. Any of these can be used to trigger the sending of a text message.
Click “Continue.”
SharpSpring Trigger Options
- New Lead
- New Email Open Event
- New Form Fill-out Event
- New Opportunity
- New Page Visit Event
- New Account
Link your SharpSpring Account
Now we will link SharpSpring to Zapier using the API credentials we collected earlier. Paste (or copy) your SharpSpring Account ID and Secret Key in the popup window.
Click “Yes, Continue.”
Connecting to SharpSpring Account
Step 5
SharpSpring Text Messaging Setup
Send Message Selection
Now we’ll select the Sakari SMS action. In our case we want to send a text message to the new SharpSpring lead, so we’ll select “Send Message.” When selecting Send Message, the SharpSpring contact will be created in Sakari and the text message will also be sent.
Click the “Save+Continue” button.
Step 6
SharpSpring Text Messaging Setup
Zapier Data Fields
- Account – This is the name of your Sakari SMS account
- Mobile – This is the phone number that the text message will be sent to from your lead record in SharpSpring. This should be either the “Phone Number” or “Mobile Phone Number” field
- Mobile Country – this field is optional. If left blank, the default country code for your Sakari account is used
- First Name – we will create a new contact using the First Name from the SharpSpring contact record
- Last Name – we will create a new contact using the Last Name from the SharpSpring contact record
- Email -we will create a new contact using the using the email field from the SharpSpring contact record
- Tags – You can tags your contacts in Sakari in order to sort/filter your results. Multiple tags are supported. Simply separate tags using either a “|” or a “;” (removing quotes)
- Message – this is the text message that will be sent to the new contact. You can use a combination of static and wildcard fields. We will cover this more in the section below
Zapier Field Mapping
Zapier Trigger Configuration
Text Message Template Setup
Step 7
Set it Live
Give your Zap a name, turn it on and save. Zapier will now automatically check every 15 minutes for new SharpSpring leads. When a new lead is found, two things will happen:
- The new lead will automatically be created in Sakari (based on the configuration in step 6 above).
- The new lead will receive a text message using our template created in step 6.
Completed SharpSpring Text Messaging Zap
SharpSpring Text Message Example
