Bulk Messaging helps you save time by letting you individually message a group of contacts with a single message. There’s just a couple things to keep in mind before you start, so you can keep your contacts–and the law–happy.
There's two different types of messages that your business can send out from Podium: Everyday Messages and Marketing Messages. Learn more about the difference between them and how to use them below.
Everyday Messages
Everyday bulk messages can be sent to any of your contacts that have consented to be texted. They don't need to have signed up to your marketing list, since these aren't marketing messages.
Everyday messages can be about:
- Appointments
- Payment reminders
- Follow-ups
- Review requests
Marketing Messages
Marketing messages are sent only to contacts that have signed up for your marketing list, which means they intentionally opted in to receive marketing texts from your business. Important: These texts must be marked as containing marketing content.
Marketing messages can be about:
- Offers
- Sales and discounts
- Promoting an event
- New product launches
- Any other promotional material or information
Sending marketing messages to contacts who have not consented to receive them is prohibited. Doing so can result in unhappy customers, your messages being marked as spam, or even legal action being taken against you.
When you mark a message as containing marketing content, Podium will automatically skip sending the message to contacts who aren’t on your marketing list, even if you included them in your message’s audience. We do this to protect you from accidentally sending marketing messages to those who haven't consented. You also have other controls to skip sending marketing messages to contacts who have active conversations in your inbox or to contacts who recently received a marketing message from you in the last 5 days.
You can find tips on growing your marketing list here.
Bulk Messaging Limits
Your plan allows you to send a specific number of messages a month in bulk, but if you reach your limit, it’s easy to add more messages to your plan. A message is counted when it is successfully delivered to a contact. If you send a single bulk message to 10 contacts, 10 messages will be counted in your messaging limits.
You can learn more about upgrading and package limits here.
Delivery Settings
You have some fine-grain controls on how your bulk messages are delivered.
Locations
Podium will automatically send your business messages from the phone number your contacts have most recently interacted with, or you can choose a single location from which to send all the messages.
Quiet Hours
Podium will automatically pause sending bulk messages after typical business hours (9AM - 5PM), and resume the following day. This prevents messages from being sent late into the night or after business hours, when messages may go un-answered in a timely manner. You can disable this and send all messages uninterrupted.
Skip Settings
Podium will automatically skip sending bulk messages that contain marketing content to contacts who aren’t on your marketing list. You can also skip sending bulk messages to contacts who have active conversations in your inbox and to contacts who recently received a bulk message from you.