If you are a Super User, you can send bulk communications to a whole group of people by selecting them in the ‘Segments’ tab and then creating the content, setting the scheduled delivery date and time. Grab allows you to select a group of people and then choose which channel you want to use, create the message content and then schedule it either for immediate release or for scheduled released at a date and time specified in the future.
If you have scheduled a broadcast then it will be run at that time on the date specified, and find all of the matching people immediately before broadcasting. It will therefore find any new people that may have been added since you set up the broadcast. Pending broadcasts can be seen in the ‘Comms Log’ tab.
Sending bulk SMS broadcasts does use your SMS balance. You can find out more about your SMS balance here.
Here's a quick guide to using the Grab tool to create a Campaign email or SMS that will send immediately to multiple contacts:
1. Find your contacts using Segments.
2. When you've got your list of contacts, click 'Grab'.
3. Decide whether you want to send an email or SMS and decide whether it's a Transactional or Marketing email. Transactional will send to everyone with valid contact details (apart from those marked as Do Not Use). Marketing messages will go to those who are opted-in for that channel.
4. On the next page, if you're sending an email, you can use an HTML template to wrap around your message. Just select from the existing templates in the drop down list, or 'Add a new template'. You just need the web address of the template and to give it a user friendly name:
5. Now you can compose and format your email and add special fields which will merge in content from your contact's record.
Or if you're sending an SMS, just add in your From name and type your message.
SMS content can support emoji, plain text, merge fields and other special characters. SMS messages can be sent to UK and international mobile phone numbers. For more detail, please see the FAQs here.
Please bear in mind that when using merge fields in SMS messages, the content from the field may be longer and thus you may use more of your Establishment's SMS balance to send your message. See this article to learn more about merge fields.
Don't forget to add the Contact Optout merge field to your message, especially if it's Marketing.
For Email, use
{|Contact_OptOutLink|My Contact Preferences|}For SMS, use
{|SmsOptOutLink|}
6. Once you're happy with your content, you can review your settings and the number of recipients for your campaign. Remember, if you've selected Transactional, you won't be able to send your email or SMS to anyone who's opted out.
Make sure you send a Preview Email or Text message to your own address to check that you are happy with the way your content looks before you send it out.
7. Ready to go? Click 'Send Grab', confirm your send and your email or SMS will be sent out immediately.