Zoho Campaigns' 2023 journey: Revolutionizing with SMS gateway launch and earning exceptional customer satisfaction ratings

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

- Laozi (Lao Tzu), Chinese philosopher, 6th Century BC. 
 

As we reflect on the past year at Zoho Campaigns, these words—written 2,500 years ago—ring true for us. We work with a single goal in mind: to help you, our customer, grow your business. And we're grateful for the trust you've placed in us for the past 11 years.

Your feedback—both positive and negative—enable us to refine the product and become a more and more noteworthy player in the marketing technology industry. Though we at Zoho Campaigns believe that our journey has just begun, we think it's important not just to look ahead, but to reflect on the past.

So without further ado, here's 2023 in review—plus a sneak peek at the roadmap for 2024.

Business updates

Zoho Campaigns grew faster than ever before in 2023. We added more users than we have ever before in a single year, expanding our user group by 2.5 times the industry average. This is a strong indicator that we address our customers' pain points more effectively than our competition. We've also worked hard to improve our support infrastructure, and now consistently rank among the best products in the Zoho ecosystem for customer satisfaction scores. The emerging storyline, for us, is that more customers use Zoho Campaigns and are more satisfied with their outcomes than ever before. 

Enhancing customer experience

Enriching customer experience is a continuous process, and we've taken a few initiatives this year.

Better communication

We received feedback that we could improve our communication with users, including the material available to help you to improve your understanding and usage of our product. Given that, we've started the following programs:

• Webinar series: We've launched a new series of webinars aimed at giving you insight into the best email marketing strategies, which is useful for new, existing, and potential users.

• Marketing Matchbox: This is an all-new space for all things marketing, including tips, industry trends, expert advice, and guides. You'll also see a podcast launching soon on the same platform. Access Marketing Matchbox here.

• Competitor comparisons: How is Zoho Campaigns better than its competitors? If you have this question, here's your answer. Additionally, if you want more tips, tricks, and strategies on how to run effective email marketing campaigns, refer to our resources.

Enhanced chat support 

Customers across the world (except China) can now easily interact with product experts from within the product using the chat feature available everywhere in the product. Our responses are fast and efficient!

Onboarding assistance 

We currently have a dedicated team offering free onboarding assistance to all Zoho Campaigns users for 60 days after signup. They can explore the product and get all their questions answered at no extra cost. We are considering making this a paid service if the demand exceeds what we can handle, so hurry and sign up!

In order to be eligible for our service, follow these steps:

1. Sign up for Zoho Campaigns.

2. Go to Settings and click on subscriptions under the General tab.

3. Click the Upgrade your plan button.

You can upgrade to any of our paid plans to access the service.

Product updates 

Below are some of the key updates we made to Zoho Campaigns in 2023.

Enhancements to SMS

Introducing 10DLC for US

10DLC (10-digit long code) numbers are local long code numbers that mobile network operators approve for A2P (application-to-person) messaging.10DLC numbers offer businesses the ability to send mass text messages efficiently while keeping overhead costs low, all while providing better flexibility, throughput, deliverability, and compliance. Zoho Campaigns has made it mandatory for users of Zoho's SMS gateway in the US to register with a 10DLC brand and campaign.

Zoho Campaigns' own SMS gateway for India

We launched our own SMS gateway for India this year. This eliminates the need for the registration and authentication involved in using a third-party integration. Businesses in India can now set up SMS campaigns in a few simple steps and use this feature to reach a wider audience.

Integration with Rakuten for SMS in Japan

Businesses in Japan can now execute SMS campaigns for their contacts using Zoho Campaigns anywhere and anytime, thus broadening their reach.  

New features and enhancements 

Introducing Workspaces

We were thrilled to release this feature this year for our enterprise customers. Workspaces enable marketing teams to maintain modularity for data, campaigns, and reporting within complex enterprise organizations. This feature provides strong access and campaign data controls and enables multiple marketing teams to work within the same organization and launch campaigns with confidence.

Merge tags

Users don't have to manually create merge tags anymore. We've instead automated the process of creating merge tags for all fields, including any custom fields users create.

Footer in the email editor

Adding and editing email footers is now a piece of cake. You can add a footer element to your emails with a simple drag-and-drop action right in the email editor.

Revamped roles and privileges

Zoho Campaigns now provides four default roles: admin, manager, editor, and viewer. This new setup enhances the overall user experience and provides better control and organization options for admins.

• Admins: Workspace admins can perform all actions in the workspace, including inviting new users from the portal to their workspace, sending campaigns, setting up integrations, and managing email authentication.

• Managers: Managers can create and send campaigns, import contacts, and view reports. They don't have access to manage workspaces.

• Editors: Editors can create, edit, and delete campaigns and templates, as well as view reports.

• Viewers: Viewers can view reports within the assigned workspace, but can't perform any other actions. This role is suitable for stakeholders who only need limited access.

Integration privileges for admins

This update enables organization admins to integrate with other applications and sync data. The process streamlines and de-clutters contact management for all users across your organization.

Discontinued features

As the regulatory and competitive environment for marketing communication continues to evolve, we've improved the experience for our users by removing some features.

Deprecating autoresponders

All the automation capabilities (and more) can now be achieved through workflows. With drag-and-drop functionality and an advanced UI, Zoho Campaigns' workflows are designed to provide you with an intuitive and unified user experience.

Discontinuing Facebook campaigns

Facebook has imposed certain restrictions on their APIs, which make them incompatible with our policies—especially those around data privacy and security. As a consequence, we've discontinued Facebook campaigns from the Zoho Campaigns' feature list this year.

The road ahead

We're working on a myriad of new features for release in 2024, especially around the new UI (Zoho Campaigns 3.0) and all-new AI capabilities within the product. We will continue to expand the list of countries where we offer our own SMS gateway. Our efforts will also focus on improving the already-tight integration with Zoho CRM to improve your overall user experience when using multiple Zoho products together.

So, dear user, we welcome you to try out all the new enhancements to Zoho Campaigns, write to us on marketing@zohocampaigns.com, and let us know where you think we should be headed in order to create an even better experience with Zoho's primary marketing tool. As you gear up for another year of making waves in the market, we hope we remain your marketing product of choice on your journey to business success.

We wish you another year of a thousand steps, achieving milestones, and scaling heights. We're with you every single step of the way.

Happy New Year, Marketers!