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How to send text message marketing

  • Updated

This article is for:

Elevate
Innovate

 

In this guide you will learn how to send text message marketing, a great tool to promote your salon to your clients. At Timely, we call this SMS campaigns; where you can send marketing to any clients who have given you their number and consent to receive text messages from your business! 

 

 

Step-by-step instructions

1 Go to messages and select SMS campaigns.

 

2 Click on new SMS campaign.

 

3 If you would like to send a message to all of your clients, don't select anything here and click review clients or choose options to filter which clients will get the message. This helps your message be more specific to what your clients are interested in. Your filter options are:

 

  • Exclusive to VIP
  • Upcoming birthday
  • Appointments in the past or the future
  • They've booked at a location
  • They've booked with a staff member
  • They've booked a select service

 

4 If you want to send to clients who has no future bookings you will still need to select a date range. This makes sure clients who've had an appointment in the last two years will be included.

 

5 Click on review clients. Here's a list of the clients who'll be sent the message. If you're sending it to more than 50 people, you'll only see a sample.

 

Timely tip: If you see clients you don't want included, go back to step 4 to change the filters to get a different list of clients.

 

6 When you're happy with the list targeted, click write message, and begin drafting. We suggest you include your business name so the client knows who the message is from. You cannot personalise it with your client's name, or add emojis.

 

7 Click review campaign to see the final look of the message. A "Reply STOP to opt out" message is automatically added.

 

8 You can review the message, how many people will get the message and the total cost of the campaign. SMS campaigns aren't included in your monthly SMS allowance which is why there is a cost listed.

 

9 Click send campaign. Success! Your campaign has been sent.

 

 

 

What do I need to do regarding charges and billing?

  • You will be charged immediately when you start sending your SMS campaign.
     
  • If there are any failed SMS deliveries (e.g. the mobile number is no longer in use) Timely will credit your SMS balance.
     
  • If there are SMS balance transferred on your account from a previous campaign, then that balance will be used up first.

 

 

Other important notes

  • SMS campaigns is only available to customers in Australia, UK, Ireland, NZ, Canada and US. 
     

  • Only the account owner has access by default. But you can change this in staff permissions. 
     

  • We don't support the use of emojis or unicode characters in SMS campaigns.
     

  • It may take several hours for the campaign to fully send to all clients. Message sending can't be stopped or edited once the campaign is underway. 
     

  • The message will come from an unknown number for your clients. To ensure your clients know who the message is from, we recommend including your business name in your message. 
     

  • If you set up your message before 8am or after 9pm, we'll wait to send your message until 8am. You can adjust these settings if you like.

 

Important note: If you are on the Innovate plan and have a dedicated SMS number, your messages will instead originate from this number instead of an unknown one.

 

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