Sending Your First SMS Broadcast

How to compose a broadcast, use merge fields to personalize it, choose your recipients, and understand what happens when you hit send.

Before you start: you need an approved Sender ID

Every broadcast is sent under a Sender ID, the name recipients see instead of a phone number. You submit a request from Communication, then Overview, and once approved it becomes available to use.

Composing a broadcast

From Communication, then Broadcast, you'll fill in:

Broadcast Name - an internal label used in your reports
Sender ID - pick from your approved sender IDs
Delivery Option - Send Now, or Schedule for a specific date and time
Message - the actual SMS text

Personalizing with merge fields

Type @@ anywhere in your message to open a searchable list of fields you can insert, like @@first_name, @@church_name, @@event_name, or @@amount. Sermfy replaces each one automatically with the correct value for every recipient.

Choosing who receives it

Everyone
Specific Members - search and select individually
Groups - ministries, departments, cells, etc.
Filters - combine conditions like member status, gender, age range, branch, and more

Whichever method you use, Sermfy shows you the total recipient count before you can send, so you always know how many people (and how many credits) a broadcast will reach.

What happens when you hit send

Sermfy validates your available credits and your sender ID, builds the recipient list, replaces every merge field per person, queues the messages, and sends them through the provider, recording delivery results back into your Broadcast History.