A bulk SMS campaign is one message, sent to a defined list, at a time you choose. The mechanics are simple, but the order you do them in decides whether the send goes smoothly or produces a morning of apologies. This article answers how to send an SMS campaign from start to finish on the levelpartner.ai platform, which is also what most people mean when they ask how to do an SMS blast: building the audience, writing and testing the message, pacing it in batches, and handling the 48 hours afterwards.
What a single bulk send is good for
A bulk send suits news that applies to many contacts at once: a new office opening, an event, a change to opening hours, a seasonal reminder such as the end of the tax year. It does not suit anything that depends on where each contact is in their journey. That belongs in an automation.
Keep the purpose singular. One send, one piece of news, one action. If you find yourself writing two messages into one, you need two sends to two audiences.
Before you start
- A clean, consented smart list in Contacts for the audience, with anyone marked do not disturb for SMS left out.
- An eligible sending number, with US 10DLC registration complete if you text US numbers.
- The final message text, approved by whoever signs off bulk sends.
- A destination for the action: a booking calendar, a form or a page on your Sites.
- Someone available to answer replies on the day of the send.
How to send an SMS campaign
These are the platform steps for one bulk send, in the order the platform presents them.
- Go to Contacts.
- Select the contacts you want to message, using your smart list.
- Choose the Send SMS Bulk Action.
- Select the sending phone number when required.
- Enter your SMS message or insert a snippet.
- Review the recipients and message.
- Choose Send immediately, Schedule for later or Use Drip Mode.
- Configure any additional delivery settings.
- Review the campaign before confirming the send.
Before step 9, send the text to your own phone and to a colleague on a different network, and read it as a recipient would. Count the characters too: a message that spills into a second segment costs twice as much.
Choosing batch size and interval
Drip Mode controls the pace. When you choose it, you set when the first batch starts, the batch quantity and how long to wait between batches, and you can limit sending to certain days and hours. Instead of 2,000 texts leaving at 9am, you might send 200 every 20 minutes, so the send completes by late morning and replies arrive in a steady flow rather than a flood.
Choose the pace from your reply capacity. If three people can each handle about 15 replies an hour, and you expect a few replies per hundred messages, you can work out a batch size that keeps them busy but not swamped. For large lists, spreading over two or three days is sensible.
Suppose the firm sends to 2,400 past clients with consent, expects around five replies per hundred texts, and has two people on replies. At 150 messages every 30 minutes from 9am, about 1,350 would go out by just after 1pm on day one, with the rest the next morning. That works out at roughly eight replies an hour per person, which two people could handle. Change any input and redo the sum before you pick the batch size.
Writing the message for a bulk audience
A bulk message cannot be as personal as a one-to-one text, but it should not read like an advert either. Use the first name, sign it from a named person, and make it obviously relevant to the whole list. If it would not make sense to some of the recipients, your list is too broad.
End with one action: a short link to a page or calendar, or an invitation to reply. Put the opt-out line on the end where your rules require it.
How to do an SMS blast for free
People often search for a free way to do this. There is no lawful free route at business scale, because carriers charge for every message delivered. Free apps that send from a personal mobile usually breach carrier terms for bulk sending, keep no consent record and put that number at risk of being blocked. On the platform, usage is billed as it is used, with no minimum, so a send to a few hundred contacts costs little and leaves a proper record of who received what. The guide to affordable SMS marketing covers keeping the total low.
The first two hours and the next 48
Most replies arrive within two hours of a send, so keep the reply owner in Conversations for that window. Answer every question, book every interested person and note anything unexpected, such as confusion about the offer or a wrong link. If something is wrong, stop early: a queued send can be paused, edited or cancelled from Bulk Actions before the remaining batches go.
Over the next two days, watch three things. Delivery failures point to bad numbers to clean up. Replies need answering the same day. Opt-outs tell you whether the message was welcome. In Contacts, open Bulk Actions and use Show Stats on the send for totals and errors; Conversations shows the replies.
If opt-outs are noticeably higher than your usual sends, find out why before the next one. The usual cause is an audience that was too broad, and the guide to preparing a list for bulk texting covers fixing that.
What it replaces and how long it takes
A scheduled bulk send replaces texting from a phone, exporting numbers to a separate texting tool, or asking staff to text their own contacts. Preparing and scheduling takes about 30 minutes once the list and message are ready. Replies take the rest of the day for whoever is assigned.
The mistake most people make
Scheduling the send and then going into meetings all day. The send is the start of the work, not the end. Block time in the diaries of the people who will answer replies, and read how to handle them in conversational SMS.
When not to use a bulk send
When the message should follow from something each contact did, such as an enquiry or a booking, use a workflow instead. When you want reminders for people who do not respond, run a multi-step SMS campaign with a goal and an end date rather than a one-off send.
Troubleshooting
The send has not started. Check the scheduled time and time zone. A send set for 9am in the wrong zone may still be waiting.
Some recipients got the message and others did not. Drip Mode is still running. Check the batch settings on the send in Bulk Actions before assuming a fault.
A personalisation field shows blank. Some contacts have no value in that field. Fill the gap or remove the field for future sends; for this one, a follow-up is rarely worth it unless the error is confusing.
Recipients say the link does not work. Test links on both iPhone and Android before the send. If the page is slow, fix it, then resume any batches you paused.
Frequently asked questions
How large can a bulk SMS campaign be?
The practical limits are your reply capacity, carrier throughput for your registration and the cost of usage, which is billed per message segment. Drip Mode lets you spread a large send over several days.
Can we cancel a scheduled bulk send?
Yes, before it goes. Queued sends can be paused, edited or cancelled from Bulk Actions. Delivered messages cannot be recalled.
How long should we wait before following up?
Two days is a sensible default: shorter if there is a deadline, longer if the decision is bigger. Send the follow-up only to people who have not acted.
Who should answer replies?
Someone who can book or answer questions without passing them on. If replies have to be forwarded to a specialist, most of them will cool before anyone responds.