An easy way to communicate with your attendees about the details of your event is via email. With the built-in Email feature on RingCentral Events, you can send emails to all your attendees at once. RingCentral Events Email feature includes the following functionalities:
- The ability to create and save multiple emails
- The ability to see the status of an edited or sent email
- The ability to duplicate and reuse previously created emails
- A well-structured workflow with individual editing, previewing, testing and sending steps
- The ability to email different ticket groups
- The ability to schedule emails for a later time/date
How to use the email feature
Go to Event Dashboard > Marketing > Email Attendees. If you haven't created an email yet, you will see a blank page with a Create email button. Alternatively, if you have already created some emails, you will see them listed here.
To create a new email, click Create email or, to edit an email, simply hover onto it and you will see 4 buttons appear on the right.
The buttons functionality is self-explanatory and, from left to right, is as follows:
- Edit email
- Preview + send
- Duplicate email
- Delete email
To get started with customization either click the Edit email button on an existing email or the Create email button at the bottom left of the page.
Below is what the email editor page looks like.
Here you can:
1. Select who you would like to send your email to. You can choose to email specific ticket groups or those who have already attended.
In the first drop down menu, you can choose:
- All registered
- All who attended
- All who did not attend
- All with pending registration
And in the second, you can choose individual ticket types, depending on those you have created.
2. Customize the Email name and Subject and add a Pre-header.
3. Use the toolbar to edit the email body.
4. Edit the email body in this area.
5. Use any of the available Personalisation tags.
6. Click Show all to see the full list of available tags.
7. Once the email is ready use the Save and preview button to proceed to the next step.
8. Exit the editor by clicking the X at the top left if you want to finish editing another time.
Other things to note:
- You can have more than one announcement email at the same time in the list view.
- You can send different announcement emails to your attendees as and when required.
When you have finished customizing the email click the Save and preview button at the top right to be taken to the Preview page.
Then, you will be taken to the Preview page, as shown below. This is a perfect opportunity to make sure your email looks good and it is ready to be sent.
Once on this page, you will be able to:
1. Select an attendee you want to preview the email as.
The text will update with the selected user name.
2. Send a test email.
Here you can select different attendees to receive test emails as they will look like to them. You can also specify a Send to email address of your choice. Once ready simply click on Send test email at the bottom right.
3. Schedule the email for a later time/date
Simply click the small arrow next to the Send email button and then click Send later to schedule your email for a different time. Check out this guide for more info.
Clicking Send email will send the finalized email to the selected audience:
5. Exit the preview page
You can go back to the email list page by clicking the X button at the top left.
Once sent the email will update in the email list as shown below.
You will be able to:
- See that the email was Sent.
- See the time and date the email was sent at.
- Use the buttons to Review sent email, Duplicate email, and Delete email.
How to customize emails
In the Email Attendees workflow, we also support a template language - Liquid templates - to enable you to insert variables into your email templates. We recommend looking through their Documentation if you want to find out more.
Here is a list of supported tags:
- {{user.name}} The recipient's full name
- {{user.first_name}} The recipient's first name
- {{user.last_name}} The recipient's last name
- {{event.name}} The name of the event
- {{event.link}} The link to the event's registration page or the recipient's magic link to the event
- {{event.calendar_link}} A link to a downloadable calendar item containing the event link or the recipients magic link
- {{ticket.label}} The name of the ticket which the recipient holds
- {{registration.price}} The price, the recipient has paid for their ticket
- {{event.currency}} The currency used for paid tickets
- {{event.original_picture}} The URL of the original size event picture (use as image source)
- {{event.medium_picture}} The URL of a 200*200 px version of the event picture (use as image source)
- {{organiser.medium_picture}} The URL of the organization profile picture (use as image source)
- {{event.todays_schedule}} List schedules for today
- {{event.tomorrows_schedule}} List schedules for tomorrow
- {{event.todays_speaker}} List speakers for today
- {{event.tomorrows_speaker}} List speakers for tomorrow
- {{extra.redeem_link}} Send Magic Links to attendees with the status "pending acceptance"
It's easy to copy the Personalisation tags, simply click on them. Once clicked, the tags are copied to the clipboard and can be pasted into the email body as required.
There are two main ways to customize emails: by building it in the RingCentral Events email editor or by copy pasting an HTML code of the email built externally.
1. Customize emails in RingCentral Events using plain text
Once you create a new email, you will see a sample body. You can adjust the text based on your needs. You will find many formatting option in the email editor. Refer to this guide to learn more about email customization options: Customizing Automated Emails to Attendees
If you're familiar with HTML and CSS, you can click on the Source button to open the email code to add advanced customization.
Once you're ready, click Save and preview to check how the email looks like. If you want to edit the email further, click the Back to edit button. If you're satisfied with your email preview, to send your email to all registered attendees, click the Send email button at the top right.
2. Import HTML code from a third-party email builder
Alternatively, you can build your email in another email service provider (e.g. MailChimp). Then, import your email campaign HTML code into RingCentral Events.
To build your email campaign in MailChimp you can follow these steps:
- Add your event details and images to your campaign. Be sure to add in the liquid templates (e.g. {{user.name}} ) on MailChimp.
Note: Insert placeholder hyperlinks in MailChimp that will later become unique RingCentral Events hyperlinks. For example, if you create a button for Magic Links (pro users), enter a fake URL on MailChimp like https://mynmame.com. Then, when editing the email in RingCentral Events, insert the appropriate liquid template e.g.: {{extra.redeem_link}} - Send yourself the email you created.
- Save the email as a template.
- Export the HTML code.
To add the HTML code into RingCentral Events, click the 'Source' button, then copy and paste in the HTML code you exported from MailChimp or another platform.
When it comes to MailChimp, you will also need to remove any preview information carried over from MailChimp into your RingCentral Events email. On your keyboard, press Ctrl/Cmd and F, then type in MC_PREVIEW to find that text in the code. Highlight the below code, then press Delete.
<!--|IF:MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|-->
<!--[if !gte mso 9]><!----><span class="mcnPreviewText"
style="display:none; font-size:0px; line-height:0px; max-height:0px; max-width:0px; opacity:0; overflow:hidden; visibility:hidden; mso-hide:all;">|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|</span>
<!--<![endif]--> <!--*|END:IF|*-->
Click the Source button again. You should now see the content of your email in the plain text, not the HTML code. Once you're ready, preview and send a test email, when happy with it you can then send to all attendees.