Most businesses already keep customers in a spreadsheet. You don’t need a CRM to start messaging them — a clean Excel or CSV file is enough. Here’s how to do it without failed sends or wasted credit.
Step 1: Structure your sheet
Put one contact per row, with a header row. A good layout:
- phone — the mobile number
- name — first name for personalisation
- any other fields you want to insert: balance, due_date, branch
Step 2: Fix number formats
Excel often drops leading zeros or turns long numbers into scientific notation (2.54712E+11). Format the phone column as Text before pasting numbers, and convert them to international format:
- 0712 345 678 → 254712345678
- +254 712 345 678 → 254712345678
A quick formula for numbers starting with 0 in cell A2: ="254"&RIGHT(SUBSTITUTE(A2," ",""),9)
Step 3: Remove duplicates and bad rows
Use Excel’s Data → Remove Duplicates on the phone column, and delete rows with numbers that aren’t 12 digits. Every bad number is a wasted SMS.
Step 4: Save as CSV
File → Save As → CSV UTF-8. CSV uploads cleanly into most SMS dashboards.
Step 5: Write a personalised message
Insert column names as placeholders, e.g. “Hi {name}, your balance is KES {balance}, due {due_date}.” Check the length after placeholders are filled — a long name can push a message past 160 characters into two parts. See how message length affects cost.
Step 6: Test, then send
Send to yourself and a colleague first. Then send to the full list, or schedule it for the best time. Afterwards, use delivery reports to clean the list for next time.
Ready to try it? Open a Connect Media dashboard, upload your CSV to a contact group, and send.
Get started with Connect Media
Connect Media provides Bulk SMS, USSD and IVR for Kenyan businesses from one dashboard and API. Create an account to start sending, see pricing, or email info@connectmedia.co.ke.
