How do I send a marketing email?

Start a campaign from a ready-made design, Rezo or your own HTML, make it yours in the section editor and your look, pick who gets it, check it, send a test, then send — with the safety checks explained.

You send a marketing email by clicking New campaign on any Marketing page (or one of the Overview's quick starts, which open the composer with the right design ready — two of them also pre-pick the audience; a specific event or offer is picked inside the composer). The composer opens as a panel over the Marketing page (the whole screen on a phone) and walks you through five steps — Start, Design, Who gets it, When, then Check and send — with a summary of your answers alongside on a wide screen. Campaigns go out straight away, or at a date and time you choose — see Send it later below. Marketing is Available on Pro plan and above, and included with a paid Gift Cards, Loyalty, Tickets or Order & Pay product. Staff need the marketing draft permission to build a campaign; the actual send needs the send permission (without it, pressing Send campaign says "You can prepare campaigns but not send them — ask an owner or admin").

The five steps

• Open Marketing and click New campaign (or a quick start on the Overview).
• Start — "What is this email for?" Pick a starting point; it's only a start, and every one opens the same editor in your venue's look and colour. Ask Rezo for a whole email (Pro and Complete; a locked row on Free and Plus, not shown at a venue with products only) — say what it's for in a couple of lines and Rezo lays out the whole email, 2 credits — see How do I design a whole email with AI?. The nine ready-made designs — Promotion, Event, Newsletter, Reactivation, Loyalty, Birthday, Seasonal, Gift cards and Booking enhancer — each start with a set of sections suited to the job and your venue's cover photo. You only see the designs your venue can use — Event needs events, Loyalty a loyalty scheme, Gift cards gift cards, Booking enhancer and Birthday bookings; on a plan, one that needs something you don't have is greyed with the cheapest way to get it. A saved design and A past email take you to Campaigns to pick one (a saved design's Use this design, or a sent campaign's Copy as a new campaign), which opens straight on the Design step. Write the HTML yourself (advanced) opens a code editor instead of the section editor.
• Design — one screen for the look and the words, with an Edit / Preview switch at the top — see The Design step below.
• Who gets it — under Send to, pick one group; each card shows how many customers it reaches (the same numbers as the Audience tab): Everyone opted in (the default), Haven’t visited in 3+ months (pick 2, 3, 6 or 12 months under it — the card follows your choice), Birthdays this month, Loyalty members (shown when you run a scheme), or Build my own group for the full criteria builder (tags, bookings made, birthdays, join dates, lifetime spend and whether they've held an event ticket or bought a gift card — combined with AND; see Who receives my campaigns — and who is skipped?). Narrow it down (optional) trims the group you picked: Spent £100 or more, Held an event ticket and Bought a gift card — tick any, and a customer must match each one you tick. Under them a live count — "Will send to 143 customers" — plus how many were skipped. Only customers who have opted in to marketing can ever receive a campaign, whatever you pick.
• When — Send now (the default) or Send at a time (see the next section).
• Check and send — a checklist catches mistakes before anything goes: no subject, a section that isn't finished, a ready-made design's example words left in ("Your offer headline", "What it covers.", or the Event design's example date "Friday 12 Dec"), a picture with no description, a button with nowhere to go, no postal address (every marketing email must carry it, by law); the unsubscribe and preferences links are always in the footer. It also points out — without stopping the send, since a real event can be at that time and price — an Event section still showing the design's example time or price (7:00pm, £25 a ticket); Fill from one of your events fills the date and time but never the price, so check it. Fix it beside an item takes you to the section. Your email shows light and dark side by side, each answer has a Change link back to its step, and Send test to me emails only your own address — it doesn't use your monthly allowance, and it's always worth doing before a real send. Save as draft and Save as design are here too.
• Click Send campaign. A pop-up asks you to type SEND and add a short reason of at least 10 characters — the reason is recorded in your activity log. For sends of 10 or more people you'll also be asked to confirm your password. Then the send runs, you'll see a result like "Sent to 143 customers.", and the panel closes onto Campaigns → Sent, where the campaign's figures arrive over the next day.

The Design step

One screen for the look and the words, with an Edit / Preview switch at the top.

• The look — your own email drawn in each of the six looks (Editorial, Warm, Fresh, Bold, Classic and Minimal); tap one to switch — every word stays. A new venue starts on Editorial. The button under the looks saves the one you picked as your venue's look, so your automatic emails (welcome, birthday, review request, win-back, new member, ticket reminder, the monthly rewards update) and every new campaign are drawn in it — Editorial until you choose; any campaign can still pick another. Your venue's colour goes where each look puts it, always kept readable — never ResoFlow's colours. Typing "email look" or "campaign look" into the search opens a new email, where the look is picked. The look isn't Use a different look for emails in Settings → Branding — that gives your emails their own logo, cover and colour.
• Sections — the email is a list of sections (up to 20): photos, a photo with a headline on it, words, a colour band, two or three photos side by side (one above the other on a phone), dishes with prices, an event, an offer code, a gift card, a loyalty card, a review, good-to-know facts, buttons, dividers and a moving picture (an event, offer, gift card or loyalty section is offered only when you have that product). Each row has Edit, Up, Down, Duplicate, Remove and Add after (a removed section can be put back with Undo on the message that follows); Add a section adds one at the end (a photo section asks for its photo first). Edit opens the section in a panel that slides in over the email — your changes show as you type — and Done closes it; anything missing (a heading, a photo) is said at the bottom of the panel and on the section's row. Photos come from your image library (with a box to describe each one — shown when pictures are off and read out by screen readers). An Event section has Fill from one of your events, which fills the name, date, time and words from an upcoming published event and points its button at that event's own page — two Event sections link to their two events. Moving picture offers your own GIF — up to 1 MB, its first frame must work on its own (Outlook for Windows shows only that frame) and it mustn't flash more than three times a second; one that doesn't pass is refused with the reason — shown full width or as a small detail, or a play picture: one of your photos with a play mark drawn on it that opens your video on YouTube, Vimeo or your own page. Every button can go to your next step (your booking page, or your own page if you don't take bookings), a page of yours, or any web address, and its words can be left blank for the ones that suit. Where a button goes is worked out when the email is sent, from your venue as it is then — switch online bookings off before a scheduled email goes and its buttons go to your own page instead of saying "Book a table".
• Subject, Preview line (the grey words after the subject in the inbox — left blank, the inbox shows the first words of the email) and From name (both subject and from name required — the from name defaults to your venue's name; emails are sent from [email protected] on behalf of your venue — or from your own address once Your domain is set to send your marketing — and replies go to your reply-to address).
• Opening hours in the footer — when you've set opening hours, they sit in every marketing email's footer unless you switch them off for this email.
• Attach a promotion (when your plan has Offers) lists your live promotions: attaching one fills the email's offer section with the offer's headline, details and dates (adding one if there isn't one) — everything stays editable. Switches appear when the offer supports them, all on by default: Include the code (shows the shared code inside the offer box) and Add to their account (loyalty members get an "Add to my account" button that saves the offer to their account). Offers with one-per-person codes show Give each recipient their own code instead — every recipient gets one of the promotion's unused codes in the offer box, locked to their email address (you can also type {{uniqueCode}} anywhere in your copy); if unused codes run out mid-send, the rest still get the email, just without a code, and the campaign's detail view says how many. Test sends show a sample code and never use up real ones. If you have live showcase offers, Feature what's on lists them — Add as a section adds one as an offer section you can edit like any other.
• Preview shows exactly the email that will be sent, as you change it: on a Phone (at a phone's real width, so side-by-side photos stack) or a Computer; in Light, Dark (Apple Mail's dark mode — your email's own dark colours), Gmail dark or Outlook dark (how those apps darken an email themselves — close to what they do, but they decide); with Pictures off (each picture's description in its place); or the Plain text version that goes with every email.
• In the HTML lane, Insert image opens the image library picker and adds the picture where your cursor is (or at the end of the code), and the tags {{firstName}} and {{tenantName}} are filled in automatically for each customer. Use inline styles: a style block and SVG pictures are taken out before it sends (a style block can reach the footer's unsubscribe link, and SVG pictures vanish in Yahoo and Outlook).
• Switching to another ready-made design keeps everything you typed that has a place in the new one; if a section has no place in it, the composer names it and asks first.

Not enough marketing emails for everyone

When a campaign goes to more customers than you have marketing emails left, Send campaign asks first — "You have 120 marketing emails left — this goes to 300 customers." — and you choose:

• Send to 120 customers now — the ones who've been in most recently get it. The others don't get it now: the campaign is marked Partly sent, and Send to the remaining N reaches them once you have more.
• Buy more, then send to everyone — a pack bought there and then (the smallest that covers everyone is picked for you, at your plan's pack price; tap another to change it): the button opens the same purchase as Settings → Top-ups (the confirm, your account credit, your card), and once it's paid the campaign goes on to everyone the pack covers — the choice says so first if even the biggest pack falls short.
• Send to 120 customers now, the rest when you have more — the same 120 now, and the other 180 get it automatically the moment you have more marketing emails (you buy some, or your monthly allowance renews — the choice names the day when that falls within the week). If you haven't within a week of the send, they're dropped and we tell you in the bell and your activity log. Until then the campaign is listed at the top of Campaigns under "Waiting for more credits." — click Cancel the rest there to stop it. This choice needs at least one marketing email left; with none, buy more first.

Then the usual SEND confirm, as for any send.

Send it later

On the When step, pick Send at a time to schedule the campaign for a date and time instead of sending it now:

• Pick the Date and Time — in your venue's own time zone (the step names it). It must be at least 5 minutes ahead and no more than 90 days away; Next tells you if the time won't work. The time moves in 5-minute steps, and scheduled sends go out on those five-minute marks — a time typed in between (10:03, say) goes out at the next one (10:05).
• On Check and send, click Schedule campaign — the Send at… window opens on the time you picked (you can still change it there). Fill in Why are you sending this? — the same short reason a normal send asks for, kept in your activity log.
• Click Schedule send. Identity confirmation works exactly as for a send now — for 10 or more recipients you confirm your password (or a manager PIN) at the moment you schedule, not when it fires.

One scheduled send per draft: while one is waiting, the When step shows Scheduled for that time with a Cancel scheduled send button, and scheduling it again is refused until you cancel that one. Every scheduled send is also listed under the Scheduled filter on the Campaigns page — each with a Cancel button while it's waiting, and afterwards its outcome for the last 30 days.

When the time comes, ResoFlow re-checks everything as if you'd pressed send yourself — your credits and sending limits, who is opted in at that moment (the audience is worked out fresh, so people who joined or unsubscribed since count correctly), and any hold on your account — then sends. You get a bell notification either way: "Scheduled campaign sent" when it went out as planned, or "Scheduled campaign needs a look" if it didn't send, only partly sent, or reached a very different number of customers than expected — the Scheduled list says why.

Confirming your business before the first campaign

Before your venue's first campaign (email or text), the venue's owner confirms the business once — it usually takes about a minute and never holds up your bookings. If it hasn't been done, pressing send opens the "Confirm your business" card; see Why does ResoFlow ask me to confirm my business?.

The daily limit on new senders

While your sending reputation is new, ResoFlow gently caps how many marketing emails can go out per day: 100 a day for your first week of sending, 1,000 a day until day 30, then your full monthly allowance. This protects your deliverability — big blasts from a brand-new sender are exactly what spam filters look for, and the ramp-up keeps your emails landing in inboxes.

If your audience is bigger than what's left today, nothing fails: the recipients panel and the confirm pop-up both tell you plainly, for example "Will send to 100 of 460 today — the rest are paused by your daily limit", and the send goes to that capped number. The rest aren't lost — the campaign is marked Partly sent in the Campaigns tab, and ResoFlow remembers exactly who has already received it. Once the limit has room again (usually the next day), open the campaign under Recent campaigns and click Send to the remaining N — only the people still waiting get it, never anyone twice. Nothing sends automatically, though, so it's still worth planning big blasts for after your first month.

If you're not ready to send, click Save as draft on Check and send — saved drafts appear under Marketing → Campaigns (the Drafts filter) on any device, for everyone on your team. Leaving part-way is safe too: closing the panel (the close button, Escape, or Close on the first step) keeps your work-in-progress on the device you're using, and the next time you start a new campaign it picks up where you left off, with a Start afresh button if you'd rather begin again.

Related: Who receives my campaigns — and who is skipped? · How do I reuse drafts, templates and images? · How did my campaign perform?