Mailshots
The Marketing page is where you write and send mailshots. Only owners and leaders see it. A mailshot only ever goes to customers who have agreed to marketing emails, and that is checked again just before each one is sent, so somebody who unsubscribed this morning isn’t sent this afternoon’s.
Writing it. Give it a subject and, if you like, preview text: the line most inboxes show after the subject. The editor does headings, bold and italic, lists, quotes, links, a Button (a link styled as a big button, for “Book now”), pictures and dividers. Pictures are stored at a public web address, because that’s the only way an email can show them, so don’t use anything private. Your campsite’s name goes at the top, and the footer saying why they’re getting it and how to unsubscribe is added for you and can’t be removed. Preview the email shows it as it will arrive.
Greeting people by name. The First name and Group name buttons put a placeholder in your text that’s filled in for each person, so “Hi {{first_name}}” arrives as “Hi Sarah”. The first name comes from the customer’s contact name; with no contact name on file it says “Hi there” (and “your group” for a missing group name), so nobody gets a blank. They work in the subject and preview text too.
Your logo and colour. Under The look of your emails on the Marketing page, upload a logo to show at the top instead of your campsite’s name, and pick a colour for buttons, links and quotes. On a pale colour the button text turns dark by itself, so it always stays readable.
Who it goes to. Untick the kinds of customer you don’t want, such as schools for a Scout-only offer. Then, if you like, choose by booking history: everybody who came between two dates (a provisional or confirmed booking arriving within them), or everybody who has never booked (they enquired, or you added them, but never came). Tick Only those with nothing booked ahead to leave out anybody already coming back. This time last year, not back yet fills those in for the commonest one: groups who came within six weeks either side of today’s date last year and haven’t rebooked. The line underneath says in words who that is and how many of them have agreed to marketing emails — and only they get it.
Send me a test sends it to your own email first. Do it every time: it’s the way to catch a broken link or a picture that’s too big before everybody else does.
Sending. Choose As soon as possible (it starts within five minutes) or a date and time. It comes from your campsite’s name, and replies go to your reply-to address. Until it starts you can Unschedule and edit; once it’s going you can Stop sending, and whoever it hasn’t reached yet won’t get it. A sent mailshot can’t be changed, but Copy to a new mailshot starts the next one from it.
A long list takes more than a day. There’s a daily limit on marketing email, shared across Campsite Manager, so that mailshots can never hold up booking confirmations and invoices. The editor tells you if yours will go over several days; the rest wait their turn automatically.
How it did. Each sent mailshot shows how many it was sent to, how many arrived, and how many people opened it and clicked a link in it, with each as a share of those that arrived. The list of who it went to says the same for each person, including anybody it bounced from. Treat “opened” as a rough guide: some mail apps load pictures automatically, which counts as an open even if nobody read it. Clicks are the reliable number.
Marked as spam. If somebody reports a mailshot as spam, they’re taken off your marketing list at once, exactly as if they’d unsubscribed, and the mailshot shows it. Sending more email to people who’ve complained is the quickest way to get mail blocked, so this isn’t optional.