Sending Email
Broadcasts
Learn how to use the Broadcast Emails feature to send targeted, professional mass communications to your customer base for announcements, promotions, and important updates.
Duration
18 minutes
Category
Communication
Part 1: The Power of Proactive Communication
Communicating with all your customers at once can be a challenge. Chasing down email addresses and using a generic email client is time-consuming and unprofessional.
📧 Upbuoy's Broadcast Emails Feature
Upbuoy's Broadcast Emails feature is your built-in email marketing and communication tool. It allows you to:
🎯 Segment Your Audience
Send messages not just to all customers, but to specific groups based on tags, service days, or even assigned technicians.
✨ Maintain Professionalism
Use pre-designed templates and personalization tokens (like [Customer Name]) to send clean, branded emails.
📊 Track Engagement
See how many customers opened and clicked your emails (coming soon).
🛡️ Manage Unsubscribes
Automatically handle customer opt-outs to ensure you comply with anti-spam regulations.
Perfect Use Cases: This tool is perfect for weather advisories, holiday hours, new service announcements, or promotional offers.
Part 2: A Guided Walkthrough of Sending a Broadcast Email
Let's create a broadcast to announce a spring service special.
Step 1: Start a New Broadcast
Navigate to Communication > Emails from the sidebar.
Click the "Send New Broadcast" button. This opens the email creation modal.
Step 2: Choose Your Recipients (The "Who")
This is the most powerful part of the feature. Instead of sending to everyone, you can create a targeted list.
👥 All Active Customers
The default option, sends to every customer with an "Active" status.
🏷️ Customers with Tag(s)
This is where it gets interesting.
Scenario:
You want to send a special offer for a heater tune-up.
Action:
Select this option, then choose your "Has Heater" tag. Now, only customers with that tag will receive the email.
Logic:
You can choose "Any Tags" (customer must have at least one of the selected tags) or "All Tags" (customer must have all of the selected tags).
📅 Scheduled Services
Target customers based on when their service is scheduled.
Scenario:
A hurricane is forecast for next week.
Action:
Select this option and choose the affected date range. You can even filter by technician if only certain routes are affected.
🗓️ Route Assignment
Send a message to customers on specific service days (e.g., all "Monday" customers).
📊 Real-Time Preview
As you define your criteria, the Recipient Preview on the right side will update in real-time, showing you exactly how many and which customers will receive your message.
Step 3: Compose Your Message (The "What")
Once you're happy with your recipient list, click "Continue to Compose".
📋 Subject Line
Write a clear and engaging subject line.
Example:
"Get Your Pool Ready for Summer with 15% Off!"
✍️ Email Content
Use Templates:
Click the "Templates" button to choose from pre-built layouts for common announcements like service reminders or seasonal offers.
Write Your Message:
Use the rich text editor to write your message. You can add bold text, lists, and links.
Personalize:
Use placeholders like [Customer Name] and [Company Name]. Upbuoy will automatically replace these with the correct information for each individual email, making your broadcast feel personal.
👀 Send a Preview
Before sending to your entire list, enter your own email address in the "Send Preview Email" box and click "Send Preview". This sends a test version to your inbox so you can check for typos and formatting issues.
Step 4: Save as Draft or Send
💾 Save Draft
Not ready to send? Click "Save Draft". Your email and recipient list will be saved in the "Drafts" tab for you to finish later.
🚀 Send Broadcast Email
Ready to go? Click this button. Upbuoy will queue the email to be sent to every customer in your final recipient list.
Part 3: Tracking and Managing Broadcasts
The main Broadcast Emails page helps you keep track of your communications.
🗂️ Organization & Navigation
📁 Tabs (All / Sent / Drafts)
Easily filter your list to see what you've sent versus what you're still working on.
📊 Status & Metrics
For sent emails, you'll see how many recipients it went to. In future updates, this will include open and click-through rates.
⚡ Available Actions
👁️ View
See the content and recipient list of a sent email.
📋 Duplicate
This is a huge time-saver. If you send a similar email every month, just duplicate the last one, make your edits, and send.
✏️ Edit/Delete Drafts
Continue working on or delete any saved drafts.
Part 4: Managing Unsubscribes
Every email sent through Upbuoy automatically includes a legally compliant "Unsubscribe" link.
🤖 Automatic Handling
When a customer clicks this link, they are taken to the unsubscribe page, which confirms their choice. Their email is then added to your organization's unsubscribe list in the database (email_unsubscribes table).
🛡️ Protection
Once a customer is on the unsubscribe list, they will be automatically excluded from all future email broadcasts, even if they match the recipient criteria. This protects you from accidentally spamming customers who have opted out.
📋 View Unsubscribed List
From the main Broadcast Emails page, you can click "View Unsubscribed List" to see all customers who have opted out. You can manually re-subscribe them here only if you have their explicit permission.
Key Takeaways
Use Broadcast Emails for one-to-many communications like announcements and promotions.
Leverage customer tags and filters to send highly targeted and relevant messages.
Always send a preview to yourself before sending to your entire customer list.
Upbuoy's system automatically manages unsubscribes to keep you compliant and protect your sender reputation.
Next Steps
Email is great for newsletters and announcements, but for immediate, time-sensitive updates, nothing beats a text message.
Ready to learn about automated texts?
Proceed to Module 21: Automated Service Texts