Mass SMS broadcasting allows your messages to be read within a few minutes and has a 90% open rate. This means a higher probability of reaching and engaging your recipients. There are possibilities for broadcasts: holidays, enrollment campaigns, welcome and engagement messages, reminders for appointments and events.

⚠️ Attention: This feature is available only for users with the Operator or Admin profiles.

To send an SMS message in Zenvia Customer Cloud, you need to integrate and configure the channel. After this setup, go to Message broadcast > Broadcast and automation and select the SMS channel.

The process of creating an SMS broadcast consists of three steps, which we will detail below.

Create the message

1. Define the broadcast's name;

2. Select one or more tags to identify your broadcasts. You can add or create new tags;

3. Define the message body. You can use a pre-configured template, the Smart writer, or write the content manually.

If the message includes variables, click on Use variable fields to insert them into the message content. Variables allow you to create personalized messages for your contacts.

💡 Tip: If your message includes a link, use the Short Url. With it, you can track and monitor clicks on the channel's links. Learn how to shorten links.

⚠️ Attention: The standard text limit for an SMS is 160 characters; however, this amount can be larger through concatenated messages, meaning delivering multiple messages together in a single SMS to the recipient. The message will be fragmented into the required number of broadcasts for sending the entire content.

To send messages, there are rules regarding the character limit available for each type of SMS sending (single or concatenated message). Next, we explain the features available for creating the SMS message body.

Use message template

Templates are pre-configured models that can be reused countless times and are useful for standardized content delivery quickly.

With the SMS template registered:

1. Click on Use template;

2. Choose the template;

3. Review the template content and click Confirm to use it.

Done! The message is displayed in the text input field. Next, we explain how to use the Smart writer.

Smart writer

The Smart writer is a feature that automatically creates messages using GPT - OpenAI technology. The generated texts are customized according to the purpose of your communication.

To use it:

1. Click on Smart writer;

2. Write the name of your company and define the purpose of your message;

3. Then, click Generate text to see the suggested message;

💡 Tip: By clicking Generate another text, another message is created for your broadcast.

When choosing the message content, click Use message and then Next to configure the broadcast.

The message is displayed in the text input field. Now, we show you how to write a message manually.

Write manually

Write the message in the text input field and, upon completion, click Next.

💡 Tip: To send the same message more than once and not have to write it again, simply check the Save message as a template box.

Done! With the message content defined, you need to choose the recipients.

Configure the broadcast

In this step, define the recipients of the messages. You can send them to contacts from your database, imported from a .csv file, or added manually.

Next, we will detail each of these options.

Select from the contact base

To send to contacts from your base, it is necessary to select the list of contacts, specific contacts, or segmentation rules already added to the platform to receive this broadcast. After doing this:

1. Click on Pick from contact database;

2. Select the list of contacts, specific contacts, or segmentation rules, and click Confirm;

3. Upon completion, click Next.

Done, your users have been added!

Next, we will detail sending contacts imported from a .csv file.

Upload .csv file

To send to contacts imported from a .csv file, you need to upload a file in .csv format. All broadcasts that have variables must be done via .csv file.

The file must follow these standards:

• Be in .csv format and UTF-8 encoding;

• Contain phone numbers mandatory in the first column, i.e., always in column A of the spreadsheet;

• The first line of the file must be the header. Enter the names of the variables used in your message and use a comma (,) or semicolon (;) to separate each field. In the example, the file contains, in addition to the Phone, the Name, Date, and Time fields, as the message text has the variables {{name}}, {{date}}, and {{time}};

• Separate one contact number per line of the file;

• Contain the contact number in the DDI+DDD format (e.g., 5551999999999);

• Contain up to 120 MB.

Example to configure the file:

For the message 'Hello {{name}}! Your appointment is scheduled for {{date}} at {{time}}. To cancel the appointment, call 0800 400 1100' ,it is necessary that the file contains the message variables organized in separate columns.

With the file configured correctly:

1. Click on Upload .csv file;

2. Drag and drop the file or click Select .csv file;

3. The next step is to associate the variable fields with the corresponding value, i.e., what each field in the table represents;

4. If you want to review your file and check if it is ready for use, enable the Analyze .csv file option.

5. Upon completion, click Continue.

Add contacts manually

To send to contacts added manually, it is necessary to add recipient numbers using a semicolon (;) to separate the phone numbers. To do this:

1. Click on Add contacts;

2. Enter the phone numbers in the DDI+DDD+9 digits format, without using spaces or dashes;

3. Click Confirm to complete the action;

4. Upon completion, click Next.

Done! With the message content and recipients defined, let's move on to the final process of sending the message.

Send the message

After completing the recipients' step, check the broadcast summary. Next, you need to choose when you want to send the SMS message. To do this, click Dispatch or schedule.

Select one of the broadcast methods to complete the sending process:

• Broadcast now;

• Schedule broadcast;

• Send at the best time.

💡 Tip: If you do not want to send messages to all recipients at once, you can split the message sending into batches.

Done! Now you know how to create and configure an SMS broadcast in Zenvia Customer Cloud.