Using keywords may be something you've never done before, but CallFire makes it simple and fun! One single word — your keyword — opens up a world of marketing opportunities for you, when used together with other CallFire communications tools. Let's find out how it all works.

What is a Keyword?

A keyword is simply a word that you rent from CallFire to use in your campaigns, usually Text Broadcast or advertising campaigns. The keyword often reflects the nature of your business or organization. For instance, a chocolate shop might use the keyword "chocolate" in its campaigns, while a political campaign could use the keyword "vote." Let your creativity flow when thinking of something that people will remember!

Next, you'll find out how you use keywords within the CallFire system.

Keywords and Short codes: The Dynamic Duo!

Once you rent a keyword from CallFire, you use it to receive text messages from your customers or supporters. Here's how.

In Text Broadcast campaigns, you send short text messages to lists of your contacts, or phone numbers, via one of CallFire's shared short codes (on example is "67076"). "Shared short code" means that you do not own this five-digit number; you share it with other CallFire customers.

To the people who receive your text, the short code appears essentially as the phone number from which you are contacting them — it's simply a shortened version. The shortened telephone number makes sending and receiving messages easier. And sharing this shortened number makes it affordable, because short codes are very expensive to purchase.

So, you might ask, what allows me to share the same number with thousands of other customers? And how can CallFire's system possibly figure out which messages it receives back are mine, and which messages belong to other CallFire users?

The answer: your keyword.

When someone responds to your original text message via the shared short code, they will include the unique keyword you gave them. CallFire recognizes this keyword in the incoming text and forwards it to you.

Uses of Keywords

Now, let's go back to our earlier chocolate shop example. The chocolate shop wants to bring in more customers, so it rents the keyword "chocolate" from CallFire. It then places an advertisement in a local paper urging readers to "use your phone to text CHOCOLATE to 67076, and we'll send you special coupons that you can use in our store."

There's your overview of keywords from CallFire, how they work and how they can benefit your business or organization. There's other important information you need to know before you rent and use keywords, so please follow us to the next section.