Messages: sending an update to all your clients

What is Messages?

Admin → Messages sends an update to a group of clients in one go, by email, an app notification and the notification feed in My Account. Handy for news that does not concern a single client but a whole group, such as a new type of lesson or a temporary offer.

You send a personal message to one client from the client card; see Managing your clients. Messages is for an update to several clients at once.

How to send a message

1. Go to Admin → Messages.
2. Fill in a subject and a message. Optionally add a button text and a link, for example a "Book now" button to /boeken. Below the link fields there are shortcuts for commonly used pages.
3. On the right you see, while you type, the preview of the email, exactly as your client receives it. The second tab shows the push notification and the notification in My Account. On a narrow screen the preview is behind the View preview button.
4. Choose an audience. Below it you see how many clients are in it, how many you reach by email, how many by push notification, and how many only get a notification in the app. It also shows who is not counted, for example clients who have unsubscribed.
5. Optionally click Send test to yourself to actually receive the email in your own mailbox.
6. Click Send and confirm in the window that appears. This cannot be undone.

The link is a page on your own site, for example /boeken, or a full secure external link that starts with https://, for example a WhatsApp link such as https://wa.me/31612345678. If you paste an address that does not fit either form, you see that straight away below the field and the send button stays off.

While sending you see a progress bar. You can close the page; sending continues in the background.

The five audiences

• All clients: everyone in your client base, except those who have unsubscribed.
• Active clients (last 6 months): clients with a non-cancelled booking in the past 6 months.
• Clients with credit: clients with a package that has outstanding, still valid lesson credit.
• Group lesson waitlist: people who left their email address on your group lessons page because no training was scheduled at that moment.
• Course participants: the participants of a course you choose, optionally filtered by progress (completed, ready for follow-up, extra attention) and handicap category.

That last one differs from the other three. It is not a selection from your client base, but a list of people who asked to be notified as soon as a group training is scheduled. So it can also include people who have never booked with you.

If you schedule a group training, no email about it goes out automatically. Choose this audience, write your message and send it yourself. That way you decide when and in which words they hear about it.

Course participants and the follow-up email

If you choose Course participants, three extra choices appear: the course, and optionally a filter on progress and on handicap category. That way you can, for example, send an invitation for the next course only to the participants who are ready for a follow-up.

Two things to know:

• Only participants who gave consent for updates when they signed up receive the email. Anyone who did not give consent or changed their mind later is not counted; the summary shows how many that is.
• Participants who were signed up at the front desk without an email address are listed by name under Not reachable. Add their email address via the course's participant list and they will count next time.
• The consent question is on the intake card after sign-up. Participants signed up at the front desk have not had that question yet and so fall outside this segment; the All clients audience does reach everyone who has not unsubscribed. The composer also explains this difference on the spot.

If you set a course page as the destination in the link, Golfly measures the re-enrolments: in the history you see for that message how many people signed up for the new course via your email. For a link to another page or to an external site this cannot be measured, so you will not see a counter either.

Sending limits

To prevent spam and blocks, you cannot send without limit.

• 1 message per day by default.
• 3 messages per day with your own email domain linked to your account.

At the top right of the page you see how many messages you can still send today. If you have reached your limit, it shows until what time you have to wait.

Unsubscribing

Every email contains an unsubscribe link. Clients can unsubscribe. Anyone who unsubscribes falls outside every audience afterwards, including future messages and Reactivation. Such a client does still receive a personal message that you send from the client card.

History and failed deliveries

Under History you find your earlier messages. Click a row to see exactly what you sent, to how many clients, how many arrived and for how many it failed. If something went wrong, the email addresses are listed there with the reason.

If you want to reuse an earlier message, click Reuse in that screen. The text, the button and the audience are carried over into the compose window, so you can adjust them before sending again.

Exporting clients as CSV

At the bottom of the page is Export clients (CSV). This exports the clients in the audience you have chosen at that moment, with name, email, phone and last booking. There is no export yet for the Course participants audience; use the course's own participant list for that.