Outline the strategy for a fresh SMS messaging initiative.

Discussion
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I'm currently in the brainstorming phase for approaching the development of a new application. The application would involve managing a user database consisting of approximately 3,000 users, each with their name and phone number. The primary goal is to establish a means of sending SMS messages to all users, while also enabling targeted messaging based on user groups (utilizing tags within the database). Additionally, the most challenging aspect is the ability to occasionally target users based on their geographical location through a geofencing feature.

I'm aware that a combination of Retool and Twilio can handle the SMS messaging aspect, but I'm grappling with the integration of the geofencing feature. One potential solution I'm exploring is the incorporation of services like Radar or PlotProject to achieve this.

It's important to note that all users in the database have opted in for this communication, so it's not a random targeting process. Nevertheless, I'm currently uncertain about how to seamlessly bring together all these functionalities and whether it's technically feasible

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Welcome to the forum @zhilen111

Here is another option (I am not familiar with Radar or PlotProject to provide a pro/con.)

All modern relational databases support GIS capability which is actually pretty easy to use.

You do need to do some setup.

First you could use something like Geocod.io to get the lat/long coords of the users. It is free for up to a certain number per day.

Then you need to get a polygons you will use for the geofence (Zip codes, counties?) and import those into the database.

Finally you can do a simple query to find all users within that fence that have opted into the feature.

No more external APIs to manage to manage at that point other than hitting Geocod.io to get the lat/long of new users.

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