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All About Automated Communications (Pre- and Post-Show Emails): https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1115451
Ever wanted to send automatic pre- and post-show emails to your patrons? Or needed to send special alert emails to your ticket-holders?
In this article, we'll cover the basics of how Automated Communications work and point you in the right direction to get started:
- How does it all work?
- Can I have different pre- and post-show templates for different events?
- What about custom merge fields?
- Who gets these emails?
- Can I not send these emails to certain patrons?
- Can I report on who got the emails?
- Is there a cost?
- What about those special alert emails you mentioned?
- Any reason to not use Automated Communications?
- How do I get started?
How do Automated Communications work?
As part of the setup process, you'll create templates in a user-friendly editor. You'll use merge fields to pull in data like First Name, Ticketable Event Name, etc., to create a personalized feel for your patrons.
Then, you'll tell the system when you want it to send what templates. For example, your setup might look like this:
| Ticketable Event | Pre- or post-show? | Template to use |
|---|---|---|
| Romeo and Juliet | Pre-show | Template A |
|
Romeo and Juliet |
Post-show | Default post-show template |
| Chicago! | Pre-show |
Template B |
|
Chicago! |
Post-show |
Default post-show template |
| DOUG on Ice | Pre-show |
Default pre-show template |
|
DOUG on Ice |
Post-show |
Template C |
Before and after each Event Instance, the templates are merged and emails sent to ticket holders - all automatically!
So I can have default templates for all events, but I can send custom templates on specific Ticketable Events?
Yup! The fields are on your Automated Communications Settings page and your Ticketable Event Pages, respectively:
What about custom templates per Event Instance?
Not at this time - but you can exclude specific Event Instances from using pre- and post-show emails.
If you'd like to be able to send specific templates based on Event Instance, submit a Product Idea through the Community - we'd love to hear about your specific business needs and how you'd use that feature.
Can I use custom merge fields in my templates?
Absolutely. We'll cover that process in our article about creating templates.
Who do the emails get sent to?
Anyone and everyone who's purchased a ticket to the show!
That is, as long as their tickets are active - if they've exchanged/refunded their tickets, they won't get the email.
In other words, anyone with a Ticket Order with the following statuses will receive these emails:
- To Be Qualified
- Complete
- Partially Paid
- Reservation
This ensures that anyone with active tickets to your event receives the necessary information!
Tickets in unfulfilled subscription orders will not receive Automated Communications emails. Fulfilling a subscription is what makes the tickets active, so until the item is fulfilled, these subscribers won't receive these emails.
Can I *not* send these email to certain patrons?
Yup, in a couple different ways:
Don't send post-show emails to patrons who didn't attend
As long as you're checking people in at the door (manually or via scanner), you absolutely can - we'll cover that in our Automated Communication Settings and Setting up Automatic Pre- and Post-Show Emails articles.
Don't send pre-show emails to patrons who bought walk-up tickets right before the show
You can stop pre-show emails from sending on tickets purchased right before the show, no problemo.
How can I tell who got the emails?
You can run reports to see when (or if) a pre-show, post-show, or ad-hoc alert email template was sent - the field lives on the Ticket Order Item.
Is there a cost?
Nope! This is free for all users.
Can I use automated communications for anything else?
Yup - they're also really helpful for sending ad-hoc alert emails to your ticket-holders when you need to communicate changes or alerts to patrons or if you need to cancel/reschedule a show.
Any reason to *not* use Automated Communications?
There's one significant drawback to Automated Communications: Salesforce's Single Email Limit.
Warning:
Once you hit 5,000 total emails for the day, Automated Communications will no longer work on that day - and you'll receive no warnings it's not working.
More importantly, ticket purchase and donation confirmation emails will no longer send, meaning you won't be able to process further transactions that day.
In general, if you sell more than ~2,000 tickets to any single Event Instance, you may want to consider carefully before using Automated Communications.
Right, this is great; how do I get started?
Jump over to our Automated Communications Setup article - we'll walk you through the whole process.
Once you're done there, you can start using pre- and post-show emails!