Messaging: Best Practices

Overview:

Second only to having a variety of desirable items to auction, an administrator should pay particular attention to the Message Templates and Messaging Settings for their auction.  Configuring Message Templates is critical to encouraging guests to participate.  

The default Message Templates have no "branding" (e.g. no mention of your organization's name, the name of your auction, or the group being supported.)  The default templates will work (e.g. messages will be sent) but they won't necessarily be effective.  If not updated, guests will not recognize the source of the messages, and will likely delete them as spam or permanently unsubscribe themselves from the auction.

Tips / Best Practices:

1. Clearly identify yourself within the Message Settings - key in a recognized email address and name (person, organization, or auction name.)  If left blank, all email messages sent by the platform will come from "no-reply@mobilbid.co" with a name "MobilBid Support".
2. Don't send too many messages to your participants.  For example, if you enable Preview Notifications, then 10 minutes later set the auction to open, and send Running Notifications - you've basically sent the same message twice within a short period of time.  Someone who has enabled email and SMS notifications will get four messages in a short span.
3. Clearly identify in any Preview or Running Notifications the name of the auction or organization - don't make your participants guess!  Especially if you have uploaded a list of guests, or are notifying participants from a prior auction - make it very clear they are being included in this auction because of their earlier participation.  Put yourself in the shoes of someone who was a patron from an auction a year ago and answer the question "Why am I getting this email or text, is it safe to click on the link?" - these are your best prospects, don't waste the opportunity!
4. Don't use Custom Message broadcasts to do the work of preview or running notifications - The automated templates have more merge tags available to them than custom messages (e.g. you can insert the name of the person in a preview or running notification, but not in a custom message.)
5. Make sure you fully update both email and SMS versions within each Message Template - it is not good enough to do just the email version, as many patrons may only enable text messaging, so you need to do the SMS versions as well.
6. Don't include the registration URL found on the auction dashboard in any message template - in its place use the %{magic_link_url} merge tag.  The registration URL is only for new registrations - the merge tag will provide each patron with a personal and secure direct link into the auction.
7. If you already have a prior auction than is in Postview or Archived status, then DUPLICATE the old auction, rather than create a new one from scratch.  Duplicating makes a copy of the entire configuration, settings and items - it will save you time and make sure you get it right.  While it will also copy all the items, there is a bulk delete function to remove all the old items.