Sending text messages

Text messages are great for reminding your customers about an upcoming Session or Appointment, or sending a quick message right from within Light Blue, such as telling them that their order is ready for collection.

The first time you send a text message you’ll go through a short setup step to set the number or name from which you want the messages to be sent.

There are two ways you can send texts from Light Blue and we offer various bundles of text message credits costing from 7p per message; full details can be seen when you log into your online account through the “My Account” tab on our website and then in the “SMS settings” section. 👉 Follow this link to take you to the login page and then directly to the “SMS settings” section.

How to send a text message

To send a single text message to someone, go to a Shoot Record for someone who’s got a mobile number, click on the “Linked Records” panel, then click on the “Text Message” button.

Alternatively, click on the smaller text message icon which appears next to the contact’s details when you hover your mouse over them.

Then you can send a text message, just typing in what you want to say. 

It’s also possible to send a text message from within a Contact Record by clicking on the small text message icon which appears next to the contact’s phone number when your mouse hovers over it, though generally it’s recommended to send text messages from a Shoot Record since the message is more likely to be relevant to it.

Using Text Message Templates

Using Text Message Templates is faster than typing out a commonly used message every time you want to send it. You can set up these templates in the “Preferences” window. You can also include Mail-Merge Tags to include information about the person it’s going to, or the event you’re reminding them about. You can use Text Message Templates from the same places you can create a blank text message: simply select the “Create Text Message From Template” option instead.

Sending text messages in bulk

A great use of text messages is to remind customers that they’ve got a Session or Appointment with you. Sending lots of messages individually would be time consuming, so we’ve got an easy way to send them in bulk.

Go to the “File” menu, then” Send Text Messages”, and either “Send Event Reminders” or “Send to Found Set” if you’re already viewing the list of Contact Records, and choose your settings; for example, to send a message for upcoming events in the next seven days, starting from tomorrow. The messages are then created for you to review, amend and check the number of credits being used before being sent. 

Special characters in text messages

Text messaging uses SMS, which uses a basic set of letters, numbers and characters to send messages. If you add special characters like emojis or some accented letters then the message will cost more credits to send; we’ll warn you about this at the bottom of the “Text Message Templates” preferences and wherever you’re composing your message. 👉 Find out more about character count and associated number of text message credits in this article.

Webinar

A 25 minute webinar running through the key points in the article above:

00:00 – Introduction and benefits
02:25 – Overview of the two different methods to send text messages from Light Blue
03:45 – Method 1 setup: Sending text messages that appear to come from you
04:45 – Method 2 setup: Using Light Blue’s dedicated number service
06:40 – Sending text messages to a single contact including the use of Text Message Templates
08:05 – Using Mail Merge Tags in Text Message Templates
10:15 – Character count and impact on costs
11:35 – Error messages
12:15 – Sending text messages to multiple people: Finding the Contact Records, adding a text to them all and customising if required
14:35 – Managing replies in Light Blue (if using the dedicated number service)
16:20 – Using Workflows to send text messages automatically: Creating a Workflow and adding to a Shoot Record