Using the email broadcast function in Openstage, you can send your fans unique codes. The most common use of this feature is to distribute codes for pre-sale access to your fans. Being able to identify your core fans in the system means you can prioritise these fans or any segment of your audience, depending on your goals.
Once you have received your codes from ticket providers you need to import them into the system and attach them to the relevant broadcast. It's important that the right fans are getting the correct codes for the relevant show so make sure you upload/group your codes accordingly.
One way of helping you facilitate this is by running a pre-sale poll prior to pre-sale going live. A simple landing page with a poll step asking fans to choose a show means you then have segmented audiences for each show, and can then guarantee you're sending the right set of codes to the correct audience.
Example of pre-sale show poll
e.g.
Fans choose London show on a landing page.
After poll closes, you set up a broadcast using engagement, tag, "London", as the audience.
Upload your London codes
Send broadcast
Importing Your Codes (From Unique Codes manager)
Navigate to Engage > Unique Codes
Click Upload New
You will be presented with the Upload widget
Here, you'll need to assign a relevant tag to your code sheet. Make sure these are clear, have no spaces, and are easy identifiable from other codes.
Grouping (optional) - this feature is used for ensuring fans CANNOT receive more than ONE code from any ONE group. You can assign codes with different tags to ONE group, but if the intent is for fans to be able to receive a code from each tag, they must instead be assigned to DIFFERENT groups.
e.g. Fans get to choose multiple dates for pre-sale access i.e. London, Paris, Berlin. When you set your audiences you could distribute 3 mailers/codes to fans who registered interest in all 3 shows. To do this however, you would have to ensure that all 3 sets of codes belong to DIFFERENT groups in order for the fans to receive all 3
i.e. 3 groups called London, Paris & Berlin.
N.B. If you wanted fans to only be able to choose ONE show and receive access to only ONE code, you could make sure your poll allows for a single answer option only. This way, when you send codes to fans with a "London" tag, they just receive their code for the London show. Alternatively, if ALL codes work across ALL show dates, then you could have them all sit within ONE group to make sure fans just get ONE code.
(It's important your ticket provider clarifies which codes work across which shows).
Code Formatting & Editing
There are multiple options for managing your codes, so from left to right you can do the following:
Change code tag - used for renaming code tags. If you rename to an existing tags, these codes merge under one tag, so be careful with this function if this is not the desired outcome.
Move Unused codes - for keeping this section organised you can move unused codes from one tag to a new tag. If these codes are functional for another event these codes could be re-distributed as they were not used.
Change Group - Used for moving codes to a new group. This function creates any new groups you need to move codes to, or you can select an existing one.
Download Used Codes - Here you can download any used codes i.e. codes that have already been broadcast to fans.
Release Used Codes - IMPORTANT! - this should really only be used for internal testing purposes. Releasing a used code brings it back into the platform to be re-distributed. If you've added {{unique code}} to a broadcast and sent a test to a colleague, this code is "used", so if you need to reset it, use this feature. You can find the code and associated email ID, and click "release". You would rarely, if at all, need to release a code that has already been broadcast to a fan.
Importing Your Codes (from Broadcasts) & Sending Codes
Create a broadcast. (For more on broadcasts, see here).
In the details step, import your csv file containing the relevant codes
N.B. You can skip the upload step and select existing codes if you've imported via the Unique Codes page.
Tag and group them accordingly (again, skippable if done previously).
Navigate to edit email.
In a text block, add merge tag "unique codes" and format that as you wish (font, colour etc) - you do not need to add codes here, this tag pulls the codes in from your import.
Send yourself a test to make sure it pulls a code from the list, and only displays characters from the codes (note: this will use a code so make sure you have the right amount for distribution).
Finish creating your email broadcast, and send in the usual way.
TOP TIP: Make sure to add pre-sale ticket links to avoid barrier to entry for fans.
Giving them the link means they can copy and paste their code straight into the relevant field on the ticketing platform.
It's worth noting that if your audience size is greater than the number of codes, then the broadcast will stop sending when the system has used up all the imported codes. This then avoids empty emails being sent to fans.
NEW: Send Unique Links to Fans
In addition to codes, you can now send unique links to fans. Currently these CANNOT be matched i.e. a corresponding code and link together - they will be delivered randomly from the corresponding bank of codes and bank of links.
Links can be imported, added to a broadcast and managed in exactly the same way as codes. You can find "add unique links" under "add unique codes".
Notes:
you select from the same list of email codes list
there is no validation if the codes you select are indeed links format
they work independently of each other, you don't have to select codes to add links
the new merge tag in email composer is called
unique_link
