How to Import Contacts to Termii
Clearly, texting is a lifesaver for various types of use-cases. Text messaging is extensively used in appointment reminders, event updates, and school notifications, and it is also key in emergency response.
This article will share everything you need from importing your contacts to sending SMS campaigns from your Termii dashboard.
Our team is upgrading the contact upload process, hence the new interface. However, for now, here’s a guide on how to get started.
Getting Started
To prepare to import your contacts, here are some things to know before you begin this process.
1. Ensure that you have obtained consent from your subscribers.
2. Log in to your Termii account and create a Phonebook with these steps -
- On your dashboard, locate “Manage Contacts”
- Select “View Contacts” in the dropdown menu.
- Proceed to create a new phone list.
3. Prepare your list of SMS contacts in a spreadsheet — Google Sheets or Excel and save it as a CSV file. Then create and label as required
4. Paste your contacts’ information into the relevant fields in the spreadsheet and save it in a CSV format (look out for the label “Export as CSV” or “Download as CSV” from the File menu in your spreadsheet program)
Quick note: For customers that only have their contacts phone numbers, it is not compulsory to fill out all the columns in their sheets — they can go ahead to upload the phone numbers only adding the header *PHONE NUMBER*and clearing contents for the other columns they do not have.
If you need help saving your spreadsheet file in CSV format before you import, these CSV tips from Excel and Google Sheets will be helpful. Or, download our sample CSV import file and replace it with your own data.
Import to Termii…
Now that you have successfully saved your contacts, follow these steps to import your contacts to Termii.
1. Log in to your account, locate “Manage Contacts” on your dashboard, and select “Upload contacts” in the dropdown menu.
2. After clicking on the drop-down “Upload contacts”, proceed to “Browse” to import the list you have prepared/or saved.
3. Select “Country Code” (Currently, you can map that column to “Country code exists on contact” when you upload numbers with different country codes).
4. Select the phone book you want to import the contacts to.
Clicking the add button, you should look out for these responses from the system as you upload the contacts:
- “Uploaded Successful” — This is the first response after importing the list
2. “Contacts is been uploaded in the background go ahead and do other things” — this is the second response after adding the country code and the phone book name.
Starting your Campaign…
Phonebook is set, the contact list is added, now you can begin to send your campaign following these steps:
- On your dashboard, select “Compose Message”
2. In the “Select Type” option, choose “Group SMS”
3. Proceed to fill out the required fields — “Select Channel”, “Sender ID”, your recipients’ “country code”. Proceed to choose your “phonebook”, select “Campaign Type” as “Regular”, and set “Message Type” as “Plain”.
If you’d like to send messages to more than one country, currently, you can only select one channel at a time from the dashboard. E.g, “Ghana SMS”. Therefore, it is advised that you do not select the option “Country code exists on contact” when selecting your country code.
Setting campaign type as “Personalized” is adding name tags for when you want your customers’ name to appear in the message content — messages will not deliver with the customers’ name without the name tags. If otherwise, for Group/Bulk messages, it is advised that campaign type be set to “Regular”
4. Send right away, or “Send Later” by filling out your scheduled date and time
How to Personalize your Messages on Termii
Personalized messages can range from small touches, like adding a name, to messages written with one specific person in mind. On your contact list, you can have personalized columns and use these columns to send personalized messages.
This can be done by adding these name tags, specifically in this format as it is case sensitive, and our platform will automatically replace this tag with the information stored for the corresponding field
- <%First Name%>
E.g, Hi <%First Name%>, we just restocked your favorite product category in-store. Show this text at checkout for 15% off!
2. <%FIELD%> You can replace this with the name of the column. E.g, Great news! Your order <%FIELD%> just shipped! It should be delivered by [DATE]
Next steps…
Now that you know how to import contacts, here are some other things you can do to manage, measure what works, and grow your audience.
- SMS Campaign Reports: View all your group SMS insights which include all sent messages
- SMS Insights: View all your sent messaging insights.
With the right SMS solution, SMS marketing is a measurable, trackable, and direct marketing channel. You can easily determine which messages and promotions are working or failing, helping you continually fine-tune your text campaigns and improve your marketing messages. Invariably, you can track how your campaigns are performing and can prove your ROI.
Found this article helpful and ready to jump on a communications platform that can respond and evolve with the varying needs of your audience? Head on over to termii.com signup, and take advantage of all of the above features and more.
Cecilia Abegunde
Storytelling Lead Termii Inc.
