Overview
A text message campaign is a targeted marketing plan that uses text (SMS) messages to deliver announcements, promotional content, or event information to a specific group of recipients.
Setting up a text message campaign through WildApricot involves first determining the purpose of your message and the group of recipients you want to reach, then composing the message and determining the best delivery date and time.
Reminder: WildApricot's Text messaging service can only send text/SMS messages to contacts listed in your WildApricot database, who have provided a valid mobile number in the Phone contact field, and who have indicated their consent to receive text/SMS messages from your organization.
This article guides you through the steps to set up a text message campaign.
To learn how to register for WildApricot's text messaging service, see Getting started with text messaging
Step 1: Select a template
Navigate to Admin > Communication > Text messages. Click Launch text dashboard and select +Start a new campaign.
The following text message campaign templates are available:
- Send text to email non-openers
A message to the recipients of a particular email (sent from your WildApricot account within the last 21 days) who have not opened the message - Remind about membership renewal
A reminder text to members who have a status of Pending - Renewal - Send an update to event registrants
A text message sent to the registrants of a specific event - Create a campaign from scratch
This template lets you design a unique recipient list for any occasion
Step 2: Choose recipients
Specify the Recipients of your message by selecting a filter. If you chose a template in Step 1, the first filter is preselected for you, but you have the option to choose a different one if you prefer.
- To choose a filter, click the dropdown list under Recipients.
- After you choose a filter, select a corresponding option on the right to further define the list of recipients.
For example, if you choose the Member groups filter, you can specify the specific group.
- To view the resulting list of recipients, click Show the list.
To view a recipient's contact profile in WildApricot, click the external link icon.
For a deeper dive on selecting recipients, check out Text message recipient filters
Step 3: Compose the message
To compose your text message, click within the Message text area and start typing.
To personalize your message, you can insert macros. When you send a message with a macro in the content, the system replaces it with information drawn from your database before sending the message.
For example, you could use macros to insert the recipient's full name and the name of an upcoming event in a message sent to all registrants for that event.
A note about macros and cost estimates
If your message includes a macro, the system cannot accurately predict the final message length or the total campaign cost. This is because after a macro is replaced by an actual value from the database, the message length may increase.
Reminder: The billing for your Text Messaging account is separate and different from the billing for your WildApricot subscription plan.
For details, see Using macros in text messages
Step 4: Set the delivery date and time
You can choose whether to send your text message immediately or set a date and time for it to be sent. Remember to consider any time zone differences among your recipients.
- To send the message immediately, select As soon as possible
- To specify a date and time, select On selected date/time*
*24-hour-clock format. For PM times, add 12 hours.
Important Note: The time format for text messaging is a 24-hour-clock format. For example, if you want a message to be sent at 2pm, you should add 12 hours to 2 and enter "14:00" as the time to send. A time of "02:00" would indicate that the message should be sent at 2am.
For delivery date and time ideas, view Recommended best practices for creating a text message campaign
Step 5: Launch your campaign
You can test your message before launching the campaign. Testing gives you an opportunity to view a delivered message exactly the way your recipients will view it.
To send a test message, select Send test message and provide the recipient phone number for the test message. You can send the test message to any valid US or Canadian phone number. The test message will cost $0.04 just like any other SMS message.
Click Launch the campaign to activate the text message campaign.
The campaign screen will display the details and results of the campaign. 
For more information, see Viewing campaign results
