Sending out an immediate (Broadcast) or scheduled email message to your clients has never been easier than now with Pocket PA's latest marketing feature.
You can chose who you want to send your message to, what you want to say and whether to send it straight away or schedule it to go out at a time of your choosing.
Super handy if you have to close unexpectedly because of sickness or personal plans, or if you want to share a last minute slot you need to fill to keep your calendar full so that you're earning the most money!
NOTE: messages can only be sent to clients that have a saved email address in their client details area so work on collecting these as you go along to make it easier
NEW: VERIFYING YOUR ACCOUNT
Due to recent malicious attempts from a small minority trying to misuse Pocket PA, we are now verifying all user accounts before any messages can be sent out. This additional step has enhanced the security of Pocket PA for all users.
Please click on the Green button to send a request for verification
- this will usually happen very quickly but within 24 hours at the latest.
Broadcast & Scheduled Email messages
Start by going to the Marketing Tab on your dashboard
Ensure you have Email Credit
To send marketing messages, you will need to ensure you have purchased Email credits. These can be bought in 'pay as you go' bundles and it will always show you exactly what will be taken off your balance before the message is sent.
These start from £3 for 1,000 messages and 3 messages will cost 1p
Click on the + button to buy your credits
You can also select to auto renew and replenish your Email balance by checking the tick box
Sending a Broadcast Email message (sends straight away) or Scheduled Email message
Begin in the marketing area by clicking on the green + button
TYPE
You will start in the first tab where it will show as the message type of SMS by default.
Choose your 'Campaign name' which is just for your reference only e.g. Christmas special / Last minute availability Friday etc
The default is also set for a Broadcast message to be sent at the end of the set up process but you can amend it to Schedule it by switching ON the button
Click Next to go to the Filter Clients tab
To Schedule the Email message switch the button to ON and select the date and time you want the message to be sent
2. FILTER CLIENTS
You can choose different filter options to fine tune the clients you want to send the Email message to.
Decide if you want to include previously archived clients in messages to be sent out - if you do then switch the button to ON.
Once you have selected the filters, it will show you how many clients are selected and qualify to received the message
You can choose to send to ALL clients, to filter according to their appointments or sales history or to send to SPECIFIC handpicked Clients
Select your preferred option and then press Next
Appointments and Sales can be filtered using the following ranges
Switch ON / OFF according to your preferences
e.g. choose to send a message only to clients who get a particular service with you and / or have bought a specific product in the past 3 months etc
Or filter by work location if one of your premises is going to be closed
3. MESSAGE TEXT
Add in a Subject line and then the body of the email message that you want to send out and you will be able to Preview it on the right hand side
Add in your Business name and/or contact number to ensure Clients know who the message is from as it will be sent from a no-reply Pocket PA email address
You can choose to pull your Clients first name, last name and put your own Business name in the email by copying across specifically the Tags at the bottom
Below the preview it shows how your message will look and it will calculate how many Email credits will be used from your balance.
NOTE: The OPT OUT Unsubscribe message at the bottom of the Email is a legal requirement and cannot be changed as clients must be allowed to OPT OUT of marketing messages under GDPR rules
For clients who do OPT OUT and Unsubscribe, it will automatically be updated in the clients settings so they will not be sent any further MARKETING messages.
This will not affect them receiving booking confirmation, reminders or thank you messages as these are classed as TRANSACTIONAL messages - you can still switch these options off though yourself under the client details screen
4. REVIEW AND SEND
In this last tab you can see a summary of the message to be sent
Return to the previous screens to amend anything by using the PREV button at the bottom
The total number of clients the message is being sent to and the total number of Email credits being used will also show in this screen.
To send the message out now, click on the green Send Now button
Confirmation pop up
Click on YES / NO on the pop up to double confirm you want to send this message
It may take up to 2 minutes to be sent out and reach your clients
Success message
You will see this success message once its been correctly activated
Waiting for the message to send
Under the Past Messages area, BEFORE it is actually finally sent - it can take up to 2 minutes before the process completes - it will show a '0' in the Spent Credits column even though its in the process and shows a SENT status.
If you click on the green date you will be able to see a summary of the message details and use this to duplicate and send future messages with similar information
History of Sent Messages
You can see a history of all sent SMS and Email messages in the Past Messages tab
You can also click on the tab to see a list of any of your Clients who have opted out of marketing messages with you.