How do I send an SMS text blast?

Before you can send an SMS text blast, please make sure you have setup your SMS integration and reserved your unique phone # on your tolktalkCX account. Click here if you want to learn how set up your SMS integration

1. Once your SMS integration is setup and you have reserved a unique phone #, simply navigate to the Marketing Automation page to send out your SMS text blast;
   
2. From here, you can customize your SMS text blast campaign template by creating a new template. The SMS campaign template allows you to create a custom message that will be sent out to your desired contact list;
   
3. Start by naming this template, then entering in your custom message that you would like to send to your contacts. You can even personalize this message for your contacts by copying and pasting either {CustomerName} or {CompanyName}, and our system will automatically replace the text with either your contact’s name and / or your company name within the message;
   
4. Keep in mind that if your message contains more than 160 characters, then the message will be broken down into 160 character segments and each segment will count towards your monthly SMS limit. For example: A message with 200 characters is considered 2 segments (1 segment with 160 characters & 1 segment with 40 characters);
   
5. Once you’re satisfied with the message, click create to create your SMS campaign template;
   
6. Next, you want to add the list of contacts that you want to send the text blast to. You can do this in a few ways:
   
   • You can manually add individual contacts
     
     If you want to add contacts manually, simply click Add, then enter contact information to add contact to your SMS campaign.
     
   • You can select from your existing contact list
     
     If you want to select from your existing contact list, simply click Import > Select Contacts, then click on the checkbox to select the contacts you would like to import.
     
     Then click Add to make sure the selected contacts are added to your import list, then finally click Import so the selected contacts will be imported into your SMS campaign.
     
   • You can select all contacts from a specific segment. Click here to learn how to create a segment
     
     If you want to select specific contacts from your existing contact list, simply click Import > Select Segment, then click on the segment name to select the segment of contacts you would like to import into your SMS campaign.
     
   • You can also import your contacts from a separate CSV file.
     
     If you want to import contacts from a CSV file, simply click Import > Import CSV, then click on the segment name to select the segment of contacts you would like to import to your SMS campaign.
     
     In order to ensure that your contacts are imported correctly, we provide a CSV template you can use for reference. Make sure you keep the headers of the CSV file exactly as per the template provided. Also it’s important that you provide a valid First Name or Last Name, and also a valid Email or Phone number. These are important fields that will help our system identify unique contacts and automatically remove any duplicates;
     
7. Now that you have imported your contact list you want to send your SMS campaign to and also created the SMS campaign template, you can send out your text blast by simply selecting the campaign template then clicking send;
   
8. It will then ask you to name this text blast, this name will be used to identify this specific text blast when generating reports; and
   
9. Finally, once you hit send the sms text blast may take up to 5 mins before your contact’s start receiving your messages!