Market: How to Bulk Send in SMS

How to Bulk Send in SMS:

Text Merge Instructions:

Preparing the list:

Create a spreadsheet in excel in CSV format. Your headings will need to correspond with the placeholders in your message.
Available placeholders are:
- Assigned (If you would like the text response assigned to a specific user in Market)
- First Name
- Last Name
- Make
- Model
- Name
- Number
- Year
- *Please note the header in your excel should match the placeholder you would like to use *
Example:

Name

Number

Assignee

Shanon

7803351735

jkendon

Maicha

4034185010

jkendon

Joe

4033924058

jkendon

Luz

7803126580

jkendon

Rachel

4033926705

jkendon

Allan

4039135550

jkendon

Les

7807405707

jkendon

Kevin

7808068176

jkendon

Hubert

4039759662

jkendon

Marilyn

7808063732

jkendon

Brian

4033483861

jkendon

Zandra

7803357003

jkendon
You must clean up your data, if you have any stray punctuation it will cause your data to misalign, I suggest using the find function to search for , . / : ; ( ) + to make sure you have deleted them all. Ensure the punctuation is exactly as you would like it to appear on your text message

Clean List should have:

-No blank phone numbers (remove any customers without a number)
-A name column (labelled exactly that “Name”)   
-A phone number Column (labelled exactly that “Number”)   
-Confirmed everyone on the list is CASL compliant and that we are allowed to text them
-Saved as a CSV file

Once you have your list cleaned up to those you want to text, just follow along with the below steps:

Access the SMS gateway you would like to send your messages from and select “Bulk Sends” as shown below.

You will then be taken to the screen where you will select New Bulk Send.

Then you will be asked to Name the Bulk Send. It is suggested that you choose a name that indicates where the customer list came from to allow you to refer to it later. After you name your Bulk Send you bill be asked to upload your CSV

Now we can create our message using the dropdown to add placeholders.

Press “Preview” to see what your message will look like when sent to the customer. Press “Next” if you are happy with the preview of the message.

Once selecting “Next” you will be able to select when to send your Bulk Send. You may choose to send it now, schedule it for a later time, or save it in the system for later.

You can also choose if you would like to skip numbers with conversation activity in the past 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days. You can also choose to not skip anyone

Once you have hit “send now” you will be brought to the below page. Here you can see how many messages are scheduled to go, how many have been skipped or have failed, and how many delivered messages and replies you have.

If you need to exit this screen and would like to view the status of your bulk send again, simply choose “Bulk sends” from the top right corner when you are in your SMS gateway, and it will allow you to view all stats.

Bulk Sending Best Practices:

Keep it simple. Ideally, your customer should be able to see most of the text message on the notification preview on their phone. Test on your own if you are not sure.
Longer messages may be split into more than one text message when sending to the customer. This will add extra time to your bulk send, and drastically increase the time it takes for your message to send.
If your message is TOO informative, or TOO sales pitchy, you will receive fewer responses. Make sure to give yourself a chance to build some rapport before diving into the sales message.
If you prefer to be sending a direct sales message, be sure to include a call to action for the customer to respond to.
Introduce yourself. No one will answer a text if they don’t know who it is. Make sure to mention Go Auto, your dealership name, or your own name
Ensure you are CASL compliant. Check with your manager if you are not sure how to tell if the customer list you are working with is CASL compliant.
Watch the time! Are your customers going to be receiving messages at 11 pm at night? Pay attention to how long the bulk send will take to ensure you are not texting customers too late, or too early!
Once your customers respond, take a moment to pull up their Market CRM profile if available. The more information you have about possible sales objections, the better.