Build a New Campaign

Building a campaign lets you reach out to your contacts in a systematic and scripted way. Spoke administrators and owners are able to create campaigns from the Spoke administration dashboard.

After you create and start a campaign, you can continue editing all information with the exception of the contact list.  You must set up your VAN integration before creating a new campaign - for more information, see VAN Integration & List Loading. (link) To "add" contacts to a campaign, duplicate the campaign by selecting Copy Campaign from the individual campaign page and load new contacts into the duplicate campaign.

Note: some options are not available when using the Basic builder mode. To switch to Advanced mode and configure all settings, click on the Builder Mode dropdown menu at the top of the page.

To build a new campaign, use the following steps:

Step 1: Initiate a new campaign

From the Campaigns page of the administrator dashboard, click the plus (+) button in the lower right corner, and click on Create Blank (the pencil icon). This will pull up a new campaign settings page.

You can also duplicate an existing campaign by selecting Copy Campaign from the individual campaign page. This will often be the more efficient option.

For more information about copying campaigns, see Copy a Campaign.

Step 2: Enter campaign information

The first window in the campaign settings page is called Basics and includes fields for basic campaign information. Enter values for the following fields:

• Title — required — This title will be visible to texters and will be used for email notifications and for naming export files. Campaign titles can be useful for the bulk script editor or for your own analyses and record keeping, so you should group similar campaigns according to a carefully considered naming convention.
• Description — required — This field can be used to include instructions, additional information, or even an inspirational message for your texters.
• Due Date — required — The date on which the campaign "ends." After this date, texters cannot send initial messages for this campaign, though they can still respond to replies as long as the campaign is not archived. Setting a due date can ensure, for example, that you never recruit for an event after the event date has passed.
• Intro HTML — optional — The HTML that is displayed to texters as part of the assignment banner.
• Logo Image URL — optional — The URL for an image that is displayed to texters as part of the assignment banner. <add file formats>
• Primary Color — optional — The color that is displayed to texters as part of the assignment banner. Use the slider to choose a color, or enter a hex color code.

When you are finished, click the SAVE AND GOTO NEXT SECTION button.

Step 3: Set texting hours

To set texting hours:

1. Open the Texting Hours window.
2. Enter a start time. Use a 12-hour time, such as 9 am.
3. Enter an end time. Use a 12-hour time, such as 9 pm.
4. Select a default timezone to apply to contacts without ZIP codes.
5. Click Save.

Note: In order to comply with regulations regarding consumer telephone contact, texting cannot start before 9am local time and must end no later than 9pm local time. Spoke will automatically honor the timeframe you set relative to the uploaded zip code of each contact. We recommend ending your texting by 8:30pm local time to ensure deliverability within the allowable texting hours.

For more information, see Texting Hours.

Step 4: Import contacts to the campaign

From the Contacts window, perform the following steps:

To Import a CSV: 

1. In the Contact Source menu, select CSV from the drop down menu.
2. Click Select a File or drag and drop the file into the dotted-line rectangle.
3. Locate the contact-list CSV file and click Open.
4. After uploading a csv file, a popup menu will appear allowing you to map the column headers of your csv to the required column headers (First Name, Last Name, and Cell Phone), as well as map the optional headers (Zip and External ID).
5. Click Save.
6. Optional — Exclude contacts who also appear as contacts within another campaign.
   1. Start typing the name of the campaign you want to use for filtering (or open the drop-down menu).
   2. Click the campaign name in the list.
7. Repeat until you've finished adding the campaigns you want to exclude.
8. Then hit Save. The name of your csv will now appear in the file upload box with a green background, indicating a successful upload.

For more information and images about uploading your CSV contacts list file, see Contact Lists.

To Import a list from VAN: 

(You must already have your VAN integration set up. To do this, see  VAN Integration & List Loading.)

For VAN lists, you cannot filter out contacts that are also in another campaign.

1. Select Integration from the Contact Source menu.

2. Select the integration you wish to use (i.e. Votebuilder / VAN), and click the refresh button at the far right of the screen.

   

3. Browse for the correct list under the Choose a list menu, then press Save.
4. Review the upload notifications for processing notes.

When you are finished, click the SAVE AND GOTO NEXT SECTION button.

Note: Once you start the campaign, you will not be able to modify or add to the contact list.

Step 5: Optional — Filter Landlines

Filtering landlines or otherwise un-textable numbers will cost $.0025 (1/4 cent) per phone number, but as long as more than a third of your phone numbers are likely to be invalid, it will save you money: It's cheaper to look up a phone number and throw it out for 1/4 cent than text that number at 1 cent/segment! If you're pretty sure your phone numbers are valid, feel free to skip this section. 

Note: Phone number lookups are charged only once per contact cell for your entire organization. If a contact existed on a previous campaign and the Filter Landlines feature was used, you will not be charged an additional $.0025 to look up the same cell a second time.

For more information, see Filter Landlines.

Step 6: Resolve any overlapping contacts with other campaigns

If you have uploaded contacts who also appear as contacts within other campaigns, those campaigns are listed in the Contact Overlap Management window. Perform one of the following:

• Leave the campaign with overlapping contacts in the list.
• Select the overlapping contacts, then click the trash icon to remove those contacts from this new campaign. 

For more information, see Contact Overlap Management.

Step 7: Optional — Assign teams to the campaign

Add teams to the campaign from the Teams window:

1. Click on the Select teams field and select the team name from the drop down menu.
2. Optional — Add additional teams by repeating the previous step.
3. Optional — Entirely restrict conversation assignment to members of the listed teams by toggling the switch on. Left off, the assignment will be prioritized for members of those teams but not restricted.

For more information about creating a team, see Create a Team.

When you are finished, click the SAVE AND GOTO NEXT SECTION button.

Step 8: Optional — Set the assignment options for texters

Assignment is best done through auto-assignment (see Step 10) or through manual assignment within Message Review. However, you have the option to manually assign a number of contacts to an individual texter while building the campaign. To do so:

1. Open the Texters window.
2. Search for the names of the texters. The texters must already exist in Spoke.
3. Specify the number of contacts to assign to each texter.
4. If you have selected multiple texters, you can split the remaining messages by using the Split remaining unsent messages toggle.

When you are finished, click the SAVE AND GOTO NEXT SECTION button.

Step 9: Create an interaction script for your texters

To create an interaction script, follow the instructions in Create an Interaction Script.

When you are finished, click the SAVE AND GOTO NEXT SECTION button.

Step 10: Create canned responses for supplementary FAQ

To add a canned response:

1. Open the Canned Responses window.
2. Click Add new canned response.
3. Enter a title for the canned response.
4. Write a script for the response:
   1. Click the Script field.
   2. Write your canned response.
   3. Click Done.
5. Click Add Response.
6. Optional — Add additional canned responses.

For more information, see Canned Responses.

When you are finished, click the SAVE AND GOTO NEXT SECTION button.

Step 11: Recommended — Set the auto-assignment option

Turning on auto-assignment allows your texters to pick up the assignment automatically from the request form. By default, auto-assignment is turned off.

To turn on auto-assignment:

1. Open the Autoassign Mode window.
2. Turn the toggle on.
3. Optional – turn on the toggle to release unhandled replies after a certain period of time and enter the number of minutes in the Idle Minutes field.

For more information, see Auto-Assignment.

When you are finished, click the SAVE AND GOTO NEXT SECTION button.

Step 12: Start the campaign

Before you start the campaign, double-check the previous steps to ensure you have properly entered and saved the campaign details. When you are ready to start the campaign, click the Start this Campaign button in the top right.