The Joy of Text (or JOT) plugin provides a great way of connecting with your customers, blog subscribers or club members. This plugin allows you to send both SMS and voice messages to a group or to individuals.
To use this plugin you will need a Twilio account. If you don't have a Twilio account, you can sign up for a free trial account, then see what the JOT plugin can do for you.
The latest Version 1.4 includes support for a message scheduler extension, allowing SMS and text-to-voice messages to be scheduled for a future date and time.
This free version includes the following features:
- Allows SMS and text-to-voice messages to be sent a group or individuals.
- Creates a default group, into which subscriber names and phone numbers can be added.
- Allows administrators to add, delete and update members from the group.
- Creates a subscription form, allowing website visitors to subscribe to SMS updates.
- Allows tags to be included into the message, allowing the subscriber's name, number or a link to your last blog post to be included in the message.
- Provides the option to automatically send an SMS messages to new subscribers. You can specify the content of this welcome message, which can include website and media links.
- Allows language preference to be selected for text-to-voice messaging.
- Checks that each phone number entered is validate. new feature
As discussed in this article, SMS messages have "open rate" of 98%, i.e. 98% of all SMS messages sent, are opened by the recipient. This compares to only 22% of emails sent, so give your marketing a boost, by sending SMS messages from the JOT plugin.
The JOT Admin screens explained.
The "SMS Provider" tab
Within this tab your Twilio authentication are entered. Once you have entered your Twilio details, you can select the 'from' number from which your messages will be sent.
You can also use this screen to choose your voice and language preference, which is used when sending text-to-voice messages.
The "Message" tab
Use this tab to construct your messages. First select the recipients of your message, then enter your message. The message can contain the special tags shown below:
- %name% - when the message is sent, this tag is replaced by the message recipients name.
- %number% - the tag is replaced by the recipients phone number.
- %lastpost% - the tag is replaced by the URL of your last blog post.
From this tab, you can also specify a message suffix, that will be appended to all messages.
You can also specify whether your message is sent as an SMS message or as a voice message. For voice messages, the text you enter will be converted (by Twilio) to speech, which is played to your chosen recipients when they answer their phones.
The "Group Manager" tab
The free version of the plugin provides one member group.
From this tab you can change the name and description of the group. You can add new members to the group, delete existing members from the group or update their name and number details.
From the "Group Invite" you can construct a form which you can place on your website, to invite your website visitors to subscribe to SMS or text-to-voice message updates. You can also choose whether to send a new subscriber an SMS message containing a welcome message. The HTML for your form is provided on this tab or you can choose to use the shortcode [jotform].
The Pro version allows an unlimited number of member groups to be created.
For requests, feedback and support please send an email to jotplugin@gmail.com. All feedback appreciated.
Translations
The Joy Of Text Lite is available in English or Vietnamese (thank you to Chuong Nguyen). If you are interested in translating the plugin into your own language, then the default English translation file is available here. Thank you.
The Pro Version
A Pro version is available for sale.
Check out the comparison of the JOT Lite and JOT Pro versions.
The Pro Version has the following features:
- Allows SMS, text-to-voice or audio file messages to be sent a group or individuals.
- Allows MMS messages to be sent (USA and Canada only).
- Support for Twilio's new Sender ID capability on SMS and MMS messages. This replaces your Twilio number with some text, such as your company name, allowing you to add branding to your text messages.
- Receives inbound SMS messages.
- Automatic updates from the WordPress dashboard and a licence key.
- Routes inbound SMS messages to another cell phone number.
- Shows the history of all successfully sent and received messages.
- Provides an Android/iPhone-like 'virtual phone', allowing you to have a realtime discussion with the selected recipient.
- Allows multiple subscriber groups to be created, into which subscriber names and phone numbers can be added.
- Allows the additional variables %firstname% and %lastname% to be included into your messages, providing more personalised messages.
- Allows administrators to add, delete and update members from the groups.
- Creates subscription forms, allowing website visitors to subscribe to SMS updates.
- Allows tags to be included into the message, allowing the subscriber's name, number or a link to your last blog post to be included in the message.
- Support for Twilio SMS and voice messaging.
- Automatically send SMS messages to new subscribers, a great way to distribute links to your new media or mobile apps or just to say 'thanks for subscribing'!
- Provides commands that can be issued from an administrator's cell phone, allowing group details to be retrieved and messages to be sent to groups remotely, without logging into the WordPress dashboard.
- Provides a 'bulk import' facility, allowing your existing customer's or member's details to be imported into the JOT plugin.
- Provides subscriber 'opt-out' keywords, allowing subscribers to opt-out from receiving SMS messages.
- Allows members lists to be downloaded into a CSV file.
- Allows the gender and language to be chosen for text-to-voice messaging.
- Tested with up to 4000 SMS messages.
- Support for WordPress multisite networks and cross network activation of the plugin.
- Includes a new user role and new capabilities for Multisite users.
- Optionally allows a logo to be displayed on the plugin's admin pages, great for personalising your single or multisite installations.
- Allows a subscription keyword to be specified for each group. People can text the keyword to your Twilio number to be subscribed to the group.
- Added extended member information, such as email address, address, state, zipcode
- New cleaner "message recipients" dialog.
- Allowing either a mobile phone number or an email address to be used for routing of inbound SMS messages.
- Option to simplify message history, showing only the latest message in each conversation thread.
- Added member name (if known) on message history.
- Included default sender ID used for welcome and opt-out messages
- Twilio number verification and country codes. New numbers entered will be verified by Twilio, to ensure the number is valid.
- Implementing auto-add groups. Allowing the numbers from inbound SMS messages to be automatically added to chosen groups.
- Adding a welcome message for new inbound SMS numbers.
- Support for unicode character languages such as Chinese.
The latest version of the pro plugin, V2.0.15 includes the following new features:
- Add Woocommerce integration. Synchronizing WooCommerce customers into selected JOT groups. Customers placing new orders will be automatically added to the selected JOT group.
- Enabled selection of all media types for MMS messages.
- Show message price when hovering over the status field on the History tab.
- Added subscriber notifications. Send SMS or email to admin when new member subscribes to a group.
- Added the additional member info fields as option subscription form fields.
Try the Joy Of Text demo here
A new message scheduler extension for the Pro version is also available here. Allowing SMS, MMS and text-to-voice messages to be scheduled for a future date and time.
To download the pro version please visit here