Setup requirements
Q: Which number will my text blasts send from?
A: All text communications from your business will come through a single dedicated phone number unique to your location.
Two-way texting
Client notifications (confirmations & reminders)
Text marketing
Q: How do I set up a dedicated phone number?
A: If you don’t already have a dedicated phone number, you’ll be prompted to set one up from one of three places:
Messages tab
Client notifications tab
Marketing tab (if you try to create a text campaign)
Each of these will route to the dedicated number creation flow. Once number is created, it must go through TCR Registration. More on phone number setup & TCR registration in this article.
Creating a target audience
Q: How can I create an audience for my text blast?
A: Using the audience builder and filters available in the Clients tab. From here, once you’ve filtered to your liking, you can create a saved audience that can then be used in your text campaign builder, in the Campaign details step.
Q: Can I exclude a particular client audience from a text blast?
A: Yes. In the campaign details step of the text blast campaign builder, you can use the “Don’t send to” section to exclude a saved audience, and can also exclude clients who have recently received a text blast to mitigate over communication based on your preferred communication cadence.
Building a text campaign
Q: Can I include custom verbiage?
A: Yes. You can include up to 480 characters in total of verbiage in your text campaign, including your custom verbiage. We recommend keeping it short & sweet. Custom verbiage can include emojis.
Q: Is there a character limit on a text campaign?
A: Yes, 480 characters (3 segments) for SMS. 1,600 characters plus an image or GIF for MMS.
Q: What's a merge tag?
A: A way to personalize a message by pulling in certain pieces of client data.
In our text campaign builder, we offer the following merge tags:
Client first name
Location phone number
Location email
Q: Can I include images and gifs in my text campaign?
A: Yes. You can add one image or GIF to each message, which turns your SMS into an MMS (simply meaning it has media). Once your message is an MMS, you have up to 1,600 characters plus an image or GIF file. One MMS counts as 3 text segments.
Q: Can I include my own links?
A: Yes. You can paste your own link in the body text. We do not yet have our own built in link shortener, nor are we able to track click activity on pasted links (yet).
NOTE: At this time, the “Clicked” metric in campaign reporting only captures clicks on the booking link generated by Blvd (if the business opted to include it) - and does not capture clicks to custom links that were pasted in the text body.
For example, if I paste my own link in the text campaign and a client clicks that, I may still show 0 Clicked in campaign metrics. At this time, we can only track clicks on the booking link.
Important: If using a generic link shortener like
URL Shortener - Short URLs & Custom Free Link Shortener | Bitly , ensure that you are using a custom domain to avoid hitting spam filters or encountering deliverability errors.
Q: Can you save previous messages and/or campaigns and duplicate?
A: Yes, you can duplicate campaigns by selecting the three dot menu and clicking duplicate.
Sending and scheduling a campaign
Q: Can I send a text blast immediately in real time?
A: Yes, as long as you are sending within quiet hours. When your campaign is sent, it will appear in the Blast campaign summary page with “Completed” status indicator.
Q: Can I schedule a campaign to go out at a later date/time?
A: Yes, when sending a campaign, you can opt to schedule it for a later date using the calendar picker. Be aware of quiet hour limitations. When your campaign is scheduled, it will appear in the Blast campaign summary page with “Scheduled” status indicator.
Q: What are quiet hours?
A: 8pm-8am in location time zone.
We don’t want clients being contacted during illegal ‘quiet hours’ for business texting, so we restrict text blasts from being sent during the evening/night. You can only send text blasts between 8am-7pm daily. We are limiting the scheduled sent time options to 7pm at latest, to prevent queued messages from sending after 8pm.
Client replies
Q: Can clients reply to my marketing texts?
A: Yes. Because Boulevard uses a single dedicated phone number for all text communications for a location, clients can reply as part of two-way texting – and those replies will be visible in your Messages tab inbox.
Text campaign metrics
Q: What kind of campaign metrics are available for text blasts?
A: At a glance in the Blast campaigns summary page, you can see delivered, clicked, failures, and unsubscribes. You can also click into each text blast to view a campaign report summary card, which will show these metrics and also show a preview of the text campaign that was sent, as well as a usage summary with how many billable segments the campaign used.
NOTE: Including external links (outside of the trackable booking link offered in the campaign creation flow) should be done at your own risk. Including links that do not include the business domain, are shortened using a generic link shortener (like bitly) without a custom domain, can result in error or spam triggers.
Q: Can I see which clients have successfully received the text campaign?
A: Not at this time. Currently, we can display the count of clients who have been successfully delivered the campaign, but cannot display the final recipient list.
Q: Can I see which clients have clicked the booking link?
A: Not at this time. Currently, we can display the count of clients who have clicked the booking link, but now who those clients were. This is coming soon.
Consent
Q: How does consent work around text marketing?
A: BY LAW, text marketing can only be sent to clients who have explicitly opted in to receive SMS comms from the business.
Boulevard’s SMS opt-in flow:
Above the “Book” button - text says client is opting in to receive both promotional and operational texts from the business by booking their appointment.
Client clicks “Book” - and they are now opted in.
Client selects "email" and/or "text" via the client portal
NOTE: If a client has previously unsubscribed, the opt-in text will no longer show in the booking overlay. They can opt back in through the client portal profile, communications preferences.
All text campaigns, by default, contain opt out language. Texting “NO PROMOS” in response to any text from a business will opt the client out of marketing texts only. Operational texts (like reminders, confirmations, and two-way texts from Messages) will continue to send.
Texting “Stop” or “Unsubscribe” in response to any text from a business will opt the client out of ALL texts from the business.
Q: If clients opt out of marketing, are they opting out of two-way text?
A: No. Texting NO PROMOS in response to any text messages from a business will only opt that client out of text marketing campaigns in the future, but transactional/operational messages will continue to be sent.
However, texting STOP or UNSUBSCRIBE to any text messages from a business will opt that client out of ALL communications from the business, including transactional/operational AND marketing campaigns. To opt back in clients can text START to the dedicated business phone number or manage their communication preferences through the client portal.
Q: Can I opt clients into text marketing?
A: No. By law, a business or as staff member cannot opt a client into text marketing. The client must do so themselves via booking overlay (if they have not previously opted out) or via communications preference center through the client portal, accessible from any reminder or confirmation email.
Q: How can clients opt back in to text marketing communications if they have unsubscribed or do not use the self-booking overlay to book appointments?
A: Clients can text START to the dedicated business phone number and will be opted back in to all marketing communications including email and text.
General / Miscellaneous
Q: “SMS”... “Text” … “MMS”... What do they mean?
A: Text marketing is the more common umbrella term in our industry for marketing via text message.
You’ll often hear “SMS Marketing” used interchangeably; while we can still use that in conversation, it’s good to understand the meaning and differentiation.
SMS: Short messaging service (plain text only - characters and emojis)
MMS: Multimedia messaging service (ability to include images & gifs)
Q: How do I track my spend for text campaigns?
A: Text usage can be tracked by clicking view usage from either the messages tab or by clicking the text segments under the campaign summary. Click here for more details on text and marketing usage pricing.
Q: Do we support automated text campaigns?
A: No, not at this time.
Q: What defines "recently" when selecting to exclude clients who recently received text marketing?
A: You have the option to select the number of days in which the client last received a marketing text and exclude them from the campaign send (i.e. 1-7 days, 14 days, or 30 days).
