Reach a large group of people quickly, easily and in a personalized way with Whispir’s Bulk Message.

If you’ve got a long list of recipients you need to send a message to, Bulk Message is the most straightforward way to build your content, make it personally relevant to every member of your list, and get it out there fast.

Step 1: Download our template

Log in to the Whispir platform using your username and password, click on the work-space name you want to work in, and select “Bulk Message” from the drop-down menu. It’s under the “Messages” heading. The first thing you’ll need to do is download the example file. Even if you’ve already got a spreadsheet or document ready, grab the template anyway, as it will show you the format you’ll need to use to get the most out of bulk messaging.

Step 2: Prepare your recipient list

Open the template using a spreadsheet editing package (Google Sheets or Excel work well), and paste the contact details of your recipients into the relevant fields. You’ll notice in the template that there are a few extra fields like “Next Shift” and “Start Time” – and these are where you can add personalized details to your message. The template example shows how you might deliver a shift notification to your employees, with each message personalized to the recipient’s information needs. Don't think that you're stuck with just a shift notification, though - you can use this template to create appointment reminders, promotional messages, and more. Be sure to save the file as a CSV when you’re finished.

When a crisis does occur, however, those who avoided planning usually experience two things: regret, and damage to the business. In all cases, the task of communicating during a crisis is made substantially easier with just a bit of forethought. And if you have the right technology in place, planning won’t be nearly as painful as you might’ve thought.

In this guide, we’ll take you through what a successful communications life-cycle looks like, from planning to reporting. Once you know where to start, you’ll find it much easier to get planning.

Step 3: Create your message

Select the fields from your CSV file that you’d like to map to each message channel. Then, you can start creating your message. The custom, personalized fields that you created in the source CSV file have been included as buttons just below each channel tab. So, to send a shift notification to your recipients, just add the fields into your message as you type, and each “@@” tag will auto-populate with the details in that field associated with each recipient. Just remember to click back into the text entry box after adding a custom field to resume typing. Each channel can hold the same message, or a different one, if you like – and you can use a template that you’ve previously created as well, giving you access to rich message content, message aliases, escalations, retries, and message alerts. Don’t forget to add a subject, and once you’re ready to go, click “Next” to preview the results.

Step 4: Preview and send

In this last step, you can see what your message will look like for your recipients before you send. Select a recipient from the drop-down box, and the text field below will auto-populate your “@@” tags with the details relevant for each recipient you’ve selected. If you’ve set different content for different channels, you can check each of those here as well. If there’s anything you need to change, just hit “Back” and make the necessary tweaks – but if you’re happy with your message, you can send it immediately, or schedule it to be sent at a later time.

Step 5: Review responses

Once the message is sent, you can review it in the same way you can any other message sent through Whispir, and if any recipients have responded, you’ll see these responses come through underneath the original message. That’s it!