Crafting a Blast Message
Decide on Your Message Type
Within Blast, you have the option to send either an SMS or MMS message. More specifically, you can choose to send only a text message, a message with both text and an image, or simply an image. As you evaluate the purpose of your Blast, you have the flexibility to decide for each campaign, what type of message will be most effective at reaching your audience.
Writing Your Message
Character Count
There is a limit of 500 characters per message. Within our software, we provide a character counter above the input box to help you keep track of your character usage and will not allow additional typing past the 500 character limit.
Dynamic Tags & Limits If you are going to use dynamic tags in your message, be sure to leave sufficient character room for the values that will ultimately be populated in those tags. For example if you are adding {FirstName} to your message, make sure to leave extra character room for the potential of long names that may populate in the message. Messages that exceed this character count will run the risk of failing to deliver. |
Personalizing Messages
When possible, we recommend personalizing your messages to each recipient. To enable this, we have dynamic tags that you can add to your message that will auto-populate with information found within the contacts spreadsheet that you have uploaded for your Blast.
Sourcing the Dynamic Tags In order to use dynamic tags, the data has to exist in the contacts upload that you added to the campaign. Any column of data provided in the spreadsheet you have uploaded for your campaign, can be used as a dynamic tag. If you attempt to add a tag that does not exist, then we will not be able to do a replacement and the text will send as is. |
To use these tags, simply reference the name of the column in your message, enclosed in curly brackets, e.g. {FirstName}. The name of the column has to match exactly to what was uploaded, e.g. same spelling, capitalization, and spacing. Curly brackets can be added by holding down the shift key on your keyboard and clicking on either the opening or closing curly bracket.
Including Opt-Out Language
To adhere to the TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act), the first message you send to new contacts must include a statement that clearly states how to opt-out of future communications. For that reason, it is critical that any Blast message sent that includes new contacts contains instructions to the recipient on how they can opt out of receiving text messages from you. If this is not included, it is likely that your message will get blocked by the carrier. Generally, our clients add a sentence at the end of their message indicating how recipients can stop receiving messages, e.g. "Reply STOP to opt out."
Tracking those who opt out and removing them from future contact lists is a requirement for you as the sender of the message.
Adding an Image
There are instances when adding images to your message can enhance your text, or in some cases, it is best to just send an image by itself as the message. Should you want to use an image, keep these things in mind:
- The maximum image size allowed is 550KB
- Acceptable file formats are: jpg, gif, and png
NOTE: The maximum size of the total message, whether images are used or not, is 600KB. Please be mindful of the size of your image when using it in conjunction of text.
Scheduling Recommendations
When your message is delivered is an important consideration for your campaign. Our general recommendations are to avoid sending messages too early in the morning or too late in the evening. Additionally, it is best practice to avoid sending messages past 8PM local time.