Operate > IBM Management Center for WebSphere Commerce > Marketing tool > Work with Web and Dialog activities > Activity building blocks: triggers, targets, and actions > Actions in marketing activities
Action: Send Message
Use this action in a Dialog activity to automatically send a marketing e-mail or text message (SMS) to a customer when the customer does something specific, such as registering on the site or placing an order.
Because the Send Message action is triggered by an individual customer's behavior, you can create e-mails or text messages that are directly related to that behavior—and that are perfectly timed. A good example is sending customers a welcome e-mail or text message as soon as they register on the site.
There are two types of messages you can send using the Send Message action:
E-mail message
Here is an example of a Dialog activity that uses the Send Message action to send an e-mail message:When a customer registers, send that customer a thank-you e-mail that explains the benefits of becoming a preferred customer.
When planning marketing activities, compare the features of the Send Message action used in a Dialog activity as described here, to an E-mail activity; an E-mail activity sends an e-mail to all customers in a given customer segment on a date you specify. See E-mail activities.
Prerequisites for sending e-mail messages
Before adding the Send Message action to a Dialog activity to send an e-mail message:
- Make sure a site administrator has the site configured to support Management Center marketing features. See Configure marketing for Management Center.
- Create an e-mail template in the Marketing tool that contains the marketing message for the activity. E-mail templates define the structure and content of the e-mail that the server sends to each customer who triggers the activity. See Work with e-mail templates. You must specify the e-mail template when you create the Dialog activity using the Send Message action.
- Your site must gather and store customers' e-mail addresses. Customers must also opt in to receive e-mail marketing notifications. Typically, customers provide this information when they register or update their account information. The Send Message action sends an e-mail message only if this data is available for the specific customer. Optionally, you can request customers' dates of birth so that you can send customers promotional e-mail messages on their birthday.
- Your Site Administrator must configure the e-mail accounts that the e-mail activity system uses. E-mail configuration defines the required information about the mail servers, the time that e-mail activities should be sent, the policy for resending undelivered e-mails, and more. See Configure e-mail activity accounts.
Text message (SMS) to a mobile device
Mobile marketing offers a direct, personal and time-sensitive means to get marketing messages out to the customers. You can create Dialog activities that capitalize on these advantages. Here is an example:One week before a customer's birthday, send the customer a text message containing a promotion code to use to get 10% off an order.
Prerequisites for sending text messages
Before adding the Send Message action to a Dialog activity to send a text message:
- Make sure a site administrator has the site configured to support Management Center marketing features. See Configure marketing for Management Center.
- You must create marketing content that contains the text that to send to customers. The content type is Text message for mobile device. See Create marketing content for text (SMS) messages. You must specify this content when you create the Dialog activity using the Send Message action. The standard maximum length of a single text message using the Latin alphabet is 160 characters including spaces and punctuation. If the message is longer, the message will be either truncated or sent as multiple messages. The outcome depends on the SMS gateway service and how the site is configured for SMS messaging. Talk to the Site Administrator for more information.
- Your site must gather and store customers' mobile device numbers and country (to map the selected country to its corresponding country calling code). Customers must also opt in to receive mobile marketing notifications. Typically, customers provide this information when they register or update their account information. The Send Message action sends a text message only if this data is available for the specific customer. Optionally, you can request customers' dates of birth so that you can send customers promotional text messages related to their birthday, as in the previous example.
- Your Site Administrator must use the Administration Console to configure the WebSphere Commerce Server to support sending text (SMS) messages to customer's mobile devices. See SMS transport integration and Configure the SMS transport.
Related concepts
Activity building blocks: triggers, targets, and actions
Actions in marketing activities
Related tasks
Create e-mail templates using the Marketing tool in the Management Center
Create marketing content for text (SMS) messages