You can send a message to a group or groups or to individual contacts.
To send messages, follow the steps given below.
Navigate to Messages > Send Bulk SMS.
The Send Messages page will be displayed.
Select the pick list to send message by checking the box in the required option in the Pick List field. The available options are Groups and Contacts.
A. If you select Groups in the previous step, select the required group from the available list.
B. If you select Contacts in the previous step, select the required contact from the available list.
Schedule your messages to be sent from 8:00AM to 9:00PM local time to adhere to the applicable guidelines published by the CTIA and the Mobile Marketing Association from the Schedule Delivery field. Choose a date and time.
Note: If you want to send your message immediately, leave the field as is and don’t choose anything.If you want to use a message template already created, select the message template you want to use, from the Message Template drop down list.
If you want to send a link to a mobile page you created, select the splash page you want to send with message from the Message Splash Page drop down list.
Specify whether you wish to send your message via SMS or MMS by checking the radio button in the required field. The available options are SMS or MMS.
A. If you select MMS option, then choose the image file from your computer.
Note: Please be aware that mobile carriers are much more restrictive when sending images to many numbers in rapid succession from 1 long code number since there is much more bandwidth to factor in.
B. If you select SMS option, you can also choose to send a link to any image you want by clicking Pick File.
The Filepicker dialog will be displayed.
C. Select the required file from any social media option or directly from the computer. You may even drag and drop the file from your computer.
D. Click Open.
The selected file will be uploaded.Enter the message in the Message text entry box. 1 credit is charged for each 160 character segment. If you have a message that is 300 characters, and you are sending to 10 people, 20 credits will be deducted (2 credits for each person). You cannot exceed 1588 characters.
Note: Messages containing non-GSM (Unicode) characters will be charged 1 credit for each 70 character segment. Also, special characters such as ~ [ ];“are not allowed.Click Variations to view the number of message variations possible. This is used when including spintax in your message.
You can spin your messages with the use of spintax to create multiple variations of your messages when sending. Mobile carriers are a little more cautious letting someone send thousands of identical SMS messages at 1 time for SPAM reasons. Click Spin to see the generated output in the preview box each time you click Spin.
The Mandatory Appended Message field will be appended to the message when sending.
Specify whether or not you want to rotate through your long codes by checking or un-checking the box in the Rotate through Your Long Codes field. Useful if you have a large number of option in contacts (>500), you can spread your workload across multiple numbers in your account. If checking, please include your business name in the message. When rotating, the system will automatically rotate through all your numbers assigned to your account, including primary and secondary numbers.
Select the rate of sending from the Sending Throttle drop down list. In the fastest (default setting), you can send SMS on 1 long code at a rate of 1 SMS/second. However, you can slow that down to exercise extra caution. The slowest setting will send at rate of 10 SMS per minute or 1 SMS every 6 seconds.
Click Send Message.
...