Create and send text message blasts

From regular updates to reminding members to vote, text blasts are the perfect way to send a personalisable, broadcast message that will effectively engage and mobilise your supporters.

Follow our step-by-step guide below to create and send text blasts:

Step 1: Create your text blast campaign

Navigate to campaigns > select create campaign > Text > One way blast

Step 2: Name your campaign

Name your campaign so you can easily find it again

Tip: Create naming conventions for your campaigns as a team

Step 3: Follow the campaign build flow

Tip: Hit save once you've completed each section, you can go back and edit at any time, in any order

Goals (optional): Goals allow you to group multiple campaigns with a shared goal together and efficiently group everyone who meets the goal to make managing audiences and tracking results easier. For example, when running a get out the vote operation for a ballot, you can set up a goal for the ballot of people voting, which you can apply across multiple campaigns. If you would like to apply a goal to your WhatsApp blast, select it from the drop down menu, otherwise, disregard this section:
To: Select the audience you wish to send your blast to from the drop down or select Create new if you would like to create a new audience for this campaign - you'll be taken to an audience build page. If you would like to send to a particular number of randomly chosen audience members, check the box and enter the number you would like, up to the size of your audience:
From: It's possible to send from an SMS from a phone number or RCS is now available, which means you can use a pre-approved named sender.

RCS is a new way to send text messages branded with your organisation's name, logo, and colours. It also allows for rich media and interactivity, such as buttons and carousels. Get in touch with Movement support to start getting set up: support@yourmovement.org

Note: If you are already using RCS and select to send this way, from a named sender, it doesn't mean all recipients will receive an RCS message. This is because not all devices are RCS enabled. If a device isn't RCS enabled, it will revert to SMS by default.
Content: Enter the text of your message.

Note: You can send multiple versions of your blast by selecting add version. This means that your audience will receive different versions. For example, if you have two different versions of your blast, half of your audience will receive version 1 while the other half will receive version 2.

Tip: Personalise your message using merge tags by selecting the plus icon
Settings: Send all messages at once or customise to drip send a set number of messages out per hour between specific times.
Preview: Utilise the preview to check your personalisation by selecting any contact to show an accurate preview of the message they'll receive and check your message end to end by sending yourself or a colleague a sample. Here you'll also be able to hit send to send your message immediately or use the schedule option to set a date and time to send the message.

Once you've launched your campaign you'll be able to view results, including of any variable testing, on the campaign overview page, which you can access from Campaigns.