Once a plan is published, you can email it to your customers in one go. Mucka writes the email with your logo, the plan, its price and what is included. You change whatever you like, send yourself a test, then send it to everyone who isn't on a plan yet. Each customer's button opens their own page, where they can read the details and sign up.
It goes through your Mailchimp, which looks after unsubscribes and makes sure every email carries your address and an unsubscribe link, as UK rules require.
You need three things first: Service Plans switched on with a published plan, Mailchimp connected with your customers sent to an audience, and a paid Mailchimp plan. Mailchimp's free plan can't send an email built outside its own editor, and only holds 250 contacts. Only someone who can manage the workspace can send one.
Send one
- Go to Service Plans and open the Selling tab.
- Under Email a plan to your customers, press Promote beside the plan.
- Choose who gets it: all your customers, homeowners only or businesses only. Tick Only customers we've done a gas certificate for to narrow it further. The number it goes to changes as you choose.
- Change the subject, the heading, the message or the button if you like. The plan, its price and what is included go underneath for you. On a computer, the email itself sits beside the boxes and changes as you type. On a phone it's below them.
- Press Send me a test. The test goes to the email address you log in with, through Mailchimp, so you see exactly what your customers will. If Mailchimp wants anything sorted first, such as a sender address it hasn't verified, it's listed there with a link to fix it in Mailchimp.
- Press Send to and the number, then confirm. Mailchimp sends it straight away.
Say what the plan does, not what it pays for. A plan that promises to pay for repairs counts as insurance, which needs a licence. "We book your service in and turn up" is fine; "we cover the cost of any repair" is not. The wording Mucka starts you with is written to stay on the right side of that.
Who it goes to
Everyone Mucka has sent to your Mailchimp audience who is still subscribed, except:
- anyone already on a plan, including one waiting to start or paused
- anyone marked do not contact, in Breathing Space, or set to get no automatic messages
- anyone the choices you made leave out
The email comes from the name and address set on your Mailchimp audience, and replies go to that address.
If you've only just connected Mailchimp, some customers may still be on their way there. The screen says how many, and they're included in a promotion once they've arrived (usually within ten minutes).
What your customers get
An email from you with the plan's name, price and what's included, and a button. The button opens a page of their own with the plan's details, where they can sign up. It's the same page as an offer after a job, so they agree your terms and set up the Direct Debit there, and nothing is taken until they have. Their page stays open for six months.
When somebody signs up, they appear on your Clients tab marked Waiting to start until they've signed.
Sending it again
If you emailed the same plan in the last month, Mucka checks with you before sending it again. Anyone who signed up since is left out automatically.
Finishing it in Mailchimp instead
After a test, Finish it in Mailchimp opens the email in Mailchimp's own editor, if you'd rather change the design or send it from there. If you send it from Mailchimp, it goes to whoever you pick there, so check the recipients before you send.