Announcements: telling a group of customers something

Messaging → Announcements is the one place you write to more than one customer at a time: the shop being shut, a delay, a change of hours, and (with the right audience) a promotion.

Choose who it goes to

• Everyone booked on a date: all active bookings for a day, or a range of up to 31 days. Cancelled bookings are skipped, and a customer with several bookings gets one message.
• All opted-in customers: everyone who ticked marketing consent for your shop.

Writing to one customer? Use New in the Inbox, so the message stays in their conversation.

Narrow it to one kind of booking

• Which customers? picks one kind of booking: service jobs, hire, tours, workshops and courses, or events. Only the kinds your shop offers are listed
• Which one? narrows further to one service, hire product, tour, workshop or event. Hidden ones are listed too, so you can still reach people who booked something you no longer sell
• With Everyone booked on a date, it keeps only the people booked on that kind or item on those dates. Good for "the Saturday tour is off"
• With All opted-in customers, it keeps only opted-in customers who have booked that kind or item with you at any time. Good for "new hire bikes are in"
• Narrowing only ever takes people out. Nobody who hasn't opted in is added to a promotion

Velobook counts the recipients and shows the number under the field before you commit. A send is capped at 500 recipients.

Email, text, or both

• Choose How to send it: Email, Text or Both
• Text and Both are greyed out until texting is on under Messaging → Settings → Channels
• Texts only reach customers with a mobile number on file. They bill per 160-character part; the meter under the box shows how many parts each customer's text takes. The body is capped at 600 characters
• Write a subject (for email) and a body. Variables: `{{customerName}}`, `{{shopName}}` and `{{bookingUrl}}`; a date-range send adds `{{manageUrl}}`
• Send me a test emails the rendered version to you only

Consent, and the line between service and marketing

• All opted-in customers is the only marketing send in the product. Every email carries an unsubscribe link, every text carries Reply STOP, and anyone who has opted out is suppressed. The promotional-wording check is skipped for that audience
• If someone replies asking to be taken off your list, stop marketing for that address from their thread in the Inbox or from their profile
• This is separate from the automatic booking messages in reminders: email and SMS, which are never promotions

Sending it

• A group send asks you to confirm in a dialog that restates how many people it reaches on each channel. It cannot be undone
• Larger sends go out over the following few minutes
• The confirmation links to the Sent mailbox in the Inbox, where you can see what landed and which sends failed