This article will provide you with an overview of how to utilize your Signpost account. With this rundown of each page on the navigation bar, you’ll have a better understanding of how to optimize your goals with Signpost, whether that’s to streamline your communications, generate reviews, or to achieve speed-to-lead. This overview is designed for clients that have software subscriptions. If you’d like to upgrade your package to include our Instant Response features, promotions and campaigns, and our review generation tools, contact our support team by emailing support@signpost.com.
When you first login to your Signpost account, you will see the Messaging Hub. The Messaging Hub will become your central communication inbox to stay on top of messages from your leads and customers.
The Messaging Hub
When you first login as a new user, you might notice that there aren’t a lot of messages waiting for you. Instead you’ll see an introduction video that will highlight what you need to know about using your Messaging Hub, or other videos outlining our latest features.
Here’s a rundown of you you can start receiving messages from your top lead sources and social media channels:
Text messages (SMS & MMS)
Google Business Messages
Facebook
Angi/HomeAdvisor leads
Thumbtack leads
Web chats
To text leads and customers: All you need to do is advertise your text marketing number to start getting text messages. Your personal text marketing number is located at the top of your Messaging Hub.
Send texts directly to leads and customers by hitting the “New” message button. Type in the phone number of the person you want to text. Our Messaging Hub is a powerful texting inbox– and customers prefer texting. In fact, 89% of consumers say they prefer texting with businesses over any other mode of communication.
To start sending and receiving messages from Thumbtack, Google Business Messages, Angi, and Facebook:
Head to Settings > Instant Responders. Click the Connect button next to the lead sources you’d like to sync with Signpost. This will allow information to travel between accounts, like contact information and messages.
Now that you’ve connected these accounts, you will receive messages in the Messaging Hub. In order to really take advantage of our features, activate Instant Response by turning on the toggle for each lead service. With the toggle turned on, you will see a box with the default Instant Response displayed. Edit the text in this box to include any message you want your leads to receive when they reach out to your business. Here’s a popular example:
“Hi, thanks for reaching out to (business name). Can you let us know in a few sentences what kind of service you’re looking for? Thanks. - (name)”
Pro Tip! Customize your Instant Response message so that it includes a screening question. Why? It is a more engaging way to get a response from your leads or customers. In addition, it’ll save you time and effort in trying to understand if a lead is a good fit for your business and services. Some examples that we recommend:
Have you checked out our service list? (Include a link to a webpage)
Do you have a timeline for your project?
How can we earn your business?
Watch the Instant Response messages in real time from the Messaging Hub. From the Messaging Hub, you should continue the conversation in the thread. Signpost will send that message through the platform that the lead or customer is communicating through. For example, if they are reaching out over Facebook and you reply in Signpost, your reply will be posted to the Facebook Messenger chat so that you seamlessly meet the lead where they are. They won’t know you’re using Signpost to power the conversation!
Insights
We know that it's important for every business to have good information in order to make informed business decisions. The Insights Page is where you will access real-time stats on what is happening with your businesses reputation, your inbound leads, and a list of recent customer activity.
Reviews: Let’s start with the top section, called “Signpost Review Campaign.” The first three boxes outline:
Your current rating on individual top review sites (Google, Facebook, and Yelp).
Next, a look at your all-time reviews.
Your Total Feedback count by the type of feedback, ranging from very positive to very negative.
Lastly, the box on the far right shows how Signpost has helped your business with a count of number of emails and texts send for both review and feedback campaigns
If you click “Show Breakdown,” you can view additional details about your review campaigns with sent emails and open rates, plus a real-time view of recent reviews!
Inbound leads: This section will help you keep track of how Signpost helps you capture and convert leads by responding instantly.
The first box shows the total number of Instant Response messages sent. Underneath, we provide a look at which messages have been responded to versus the messages received. You may have an integration bringing in messages, but you might not have turned on Instant Response for that channel.
Number of leads per month will help you watch for trends and peak times when leads are reaching out to your business.
The last box shows the breakdown of lead sources from these new inbound leads. This can help you get a better picture of which marketing efforts are resulting in a higher return.
Lastly, this page shows your recent customer activity. Use this as a timeline of customer interaction. At any time, you can click on the contact information to find the phone number, and copy and paste that phone number into a new Messaging Hub message to text them. Some examples of when you would do this include.
Contacts
On the contacts page, your goal is to add more marketable contacts into your Signpost account so you can request reviews, request feedback, communicate via text and social media, and send promotional campaigns.
To bulk upload contacts, follow the prompts to upload a CSV file. We have some additional tips on the types of contacts you should import into Signpost to set your marketing campaigns up for success: read about email inbox placement here.
Another option is to add one contact. Some Signpost users choose to add in a contact manually after closing a sale with someone. This way they know the person will get a review request and be enrolled in getting review campaigns.
Of course, the other option is to bring contacts into Signpost using integrations. To see what platforms we can integrate with to automatically sync contacts, click here.
Reviews
Review Requests follow up with your customers so that it's easy and convenient for them to leave a great review. We focus on the sites where prospects are most likely to find your business online, to help build a trusted reputation in your market: Google My Business, Facebook, and Yelp. These are sent automatically to your contacts, without you having to lift a finger!
Check out this help center article with an overview on managing reviews for your business.
Campaigns
Ongoing Campaigns send the right messages at the right time to your prospects and customers. These campaigns are targeted further, based on customer lifecycle stage - such as considering if they are a prospect, past, or current customer. These are also sent automatically to your contacts, without you having to lift a finger! Here are some examples of lifecycle stages, followed by ideas for ongoing campaigns:
New Customer Campaign: Sends to prospects and Unknown contacts, usually this would be a basic advertisement that you are willing to offer to any new customers to seal the deal and bring in new business.
Active Customer Campaign: Only sends to contacts tagged as active customers, generally this offer will be on additional or supplementary services (Think gutter cleaning for roofers, something that enhances the initial service). Active Customer Campaigns can also be used to ask for referrals or keep past customers engaged and keep the business top of mind.
Winback Campaign: Only sends to contacts who used to be active but are no longer engaging with the business. Generally a slightly better offer than an Active Customer Campaign, the goal is to get past customers re-engaged with the business and to take advantage of additional services.
One-Time Campaigns can be created by you anytime. These assist in driving attention to events, news, announcements, or other communications about your business to drive engagement and build relationships with your customers. For your convenience, we have a variety of templates to get you started. Some popular one time campaign ideas include:
Limited-time promotions to re-engage your customer base
Holiday campaigns, send well wishes and/or offer discounts
Seasonal campaigns, providing information on best practices to consider based on the season, for example
Settings
The Settings page is where you will update your business information, manage review sites, and set up your Instant Responders, like we discussed at the top of this article in the Messaging Hub section.
Integrations
During your initial account setup, you can connect to any of our Software Integrations. These include many industry-specific CRMs, accounting software, payment systems, and more. This serves to eliminate manual effort on your part, enable hands-free automation, and ensures a seamless prospect and customer experience.
Typically, integrations connect contacts from your other software systems so we can automatically send a review request on your behalf after a job is complete. This way you don’t have to think about manually importing a contact list. Popular integrations include Quickbooks and Freshbooks, so that after an invoice is paid your customers start receiving review requests.