Broadcasts vs. Workflows: when to use each one

Omnifox has two tools that get mixed up sometimes because both send messages to many contacts, but they solve different problems: Broadcasts and Workflows (automations).

Broadcasts: a mass send, at one point in time

A broadcast is a one-off campaign: you pick a channel, define an audience (everyone, by tag, by group, or by custom field), write a message (with personalization variables), and send it now or schedule it for a specific date and time. Once sent, the campaign is closed — to message those contacts again, you create another broadcast.

Use it for: announcements, promotions, product updates, event reminders, one-time communications to all or part of your contact base.

Workflows: ongoing automation, triggered by events

A workflow isn't "sent" once — it stays active and fires automatically every time an event happens (a contact is created, a conversation goes idle, a deal is won, a task is due, etc.). It can chain several steps with conditions, waits, assignment to an agent or team, and outbound messages, all orchestrated without anyone having to hit "send" each time.

Use it for: welcome messages to new contacts, automatic follow-up when a customer stops replying, staggered reminders in a process (nurturing), or any sequence that should repeat identically for every contact who meets a given condition.

How to choose

Example

You're launching a webinar on Friday: you send a Broadcast email to your whole customer base announcing it. From there, you turn on a Workflow that, for every new contact who registers for the webinar through your form, automatically sends a confirmation message and, two days later, a reminder if they haven't confirmed attendance yet.

Tips

• If you find yourself recreating the same broadcast "by hand" every week for the same type of event (say, every time a new lead comes in), that's a sign that logic belongs in a Workflow instead.
• You can combine both: a one-time broadcast for the big announcement, and a workflow for fine-grained follow-up with whoever reacts.

Troubleshooting

• I want to repeat the same broadcast automatically every week: Broadcasts has no built-in recurrence — model that as a Workflow triggered by a condition or a time-based trigger instead.
• My workflow doesn't fire for contacts who already existed before I created it: workflows react to new events from the moment they're activated, not to historical contacts; for those cases, a one-time Broadcast is the right tool.