Broadcasts: Quick Starter for Classic
This training module will get you sending a simple text message broadcast to your contacts using the Classic Prompt.io broadcast wizard.
Navigate to Automation → Contact Actions
From the Home page, navigate to the Automations tab.
On the Automations tab, navigate to Contact Actions.
Create a New Contact Action
Select the Add Contact Action button in the upper right corner.
Specify the Recipients of the Broadcast
1. Broadcast Name
Give the broadcast a descriptive name — for example “Call for Volunteers” or something memorable.
2. Select contact lists
Select the lists of contacts you wish to target. Multiple lists can be targeted.
3. Tags
If you like, you can specify a tag or tags that must be present on the selected contacts — for example, if you select List A and List B and Tag T, only contacts that appear on List A or B that also have Tag T will be targeted. If more than one tag is selected, the broadcast will target contacts that possess one or more of the specified tags.
4. Exclude Tags
If you like you can also specify tags to exclude. For instance, if you have List A selected and Tag E excluded, the broadcast will target everyone on List A that does not have Tag E.
5. Data Store
You can also match by data store values. This is data that is associated with each contact and is typically uploaded via CSV when the contact lists are imported. Data store values must match exactly.
6. Targets
The number of targets matching the specified criteria updates in real-time and represents the number of contacts that will receive the broadcast text.
When the targets have been selected, press the Continue button.
Select Action
On this screen you'll most likely be sending either a simple text via the Post Reply fulfillment or you'll be sending an MMS by utilizing the Send A File fulfillment.
Sending a Standard Text Message
Using Field Merge
Using field merge to personalize each outbound text may improve deliverability and engagement. The most common fields to merge are the recipients first name and the first of the person sending the text:
- Use {first} to merge in the first name of the recipient.
- Use {peerFirst} to merge in the first name of the team member sending the text.
- Use {dataFieldName} to merge in a data field value. Note for this operation to be successful, you need to mimic the field name exactly as it appeared in your CSV import.
When you’re happy with your message, press the Continue button.
Sending a File
If you wish to send an MMS, select Send a File from the fulfillment list:
Drag and drop the file to send in the box. File size is very important to ensure great MMS delivery.
Video should be limited to 500kb.
Images should be limited to under 1mb for best delivery.
Configure Send Options
1. Select Channels
Select the outbound phone numbers you wish to send your text.
2. Processing type
This option may or not be present. If it is present, select “Consent to message on file” if you have full opt in and wish to send this message without requiring a team member to manually send each message. Or, select “Require manual confirmation” if you want to send these messages peer-to-peer and require a manual send for each outbound text.
3. Schedule
If you’d like, you can schedule the texts to be sent at a date in the future. Simply enable and select the date and time.
4. Message Time Restrictions
Usually, you’ll be ignoring this option. This is only used for broadcasts with a very large number of contacts. This option can automatically pause the broadcast at a specific time — say you don’t want many messages to go out after 9am.
5. Start In Paused State
Select this option if you wish to get all the texts and broadcast ready to be sent but you’re not quite ready for delivery to commence. Peer-to-peer confirmations can all be done ahead, and then when you’re ready for messages to start being delivered, you can “resume” the paused broadcast.
When the Send Options are configured, press Continue.
Configure Error Handling
In most cases, leave this checkbox unselected and simply press Continue.
If you are unsure about this, please contact your texting lead to determine what should be selected or configured for this options.
Configure Peer-To-Peer Assignment and Routing
1. Assign to last team member
If selected, the last team member to interact with the contact will be assigned to interact with that contact again. If you want to preserve consistency or team-member-to-contact across broadcastts, select this option.
2. Distribution of texts
- Distribute Select Distribute to evenly assign texts to the selected team members. For instance, if you have 500 texts to send and 5 team members, each team member would be assigned 100 texts.
- First Come First Served (FCFS) Select First Come First Served if you want all the texts that are to be sent to be pooled — team members that enter the pool can send as many as they can get to. This is the most popular option amongst most of our customers.
3. Reply Routing
When a contact replies to an outbound broadcast text, the reply can be routed in three ways: to the sender, to a shared inbox, or round robin to the assigned team members.
- Sender/Last Agent — the reply will be routed to the team member that send the broadcast text
- Shared Inbox — replies are all sent to a shared inbox to be managed by the selected team members
- Round Robin — replies are routed round-robin style to a team member’s inbox, equally assigning inbound replies to an individual team member to manage
4. Select Team Members
Select the team members you wish to have participate in this broadcast. Selected team members will be able to send the outbound messages via peer-to-peer texting and can be assigned inbound replies via the Reply Routing configured in #3 above.
5. Tag Routing
If you wish replies from contacts with a specific tag associated to be routed to specific team members, select the tag here. For instance, in the screenshot below, any contact with the tag VIP will be routed to Phil. Tag Routing has higher priority than Reply Routing when configured. This is most commonly used to route contacts tagged with, say, the Spanish tag to Spanish speaking team members.
Team Member Notification
If you wish, Prompt can send a text to selected team members telling them that they have some texts that need to be sent. Modify this message as you wish.
When P2P reply routing has been configured, select Continue.
Finish!
We’re finally ready to send some texts!
Review the configuration of your broadcast, and if you’re happy with it, select the Create Contact Action button.