Want to welcome your guests before arrival? Or send a good-to-know email after check-in. Keep reading this 6-step guide, and we will show you how to make it possible.
Step 1: Create your automation
When entering Automations from the main menu, click Create automation, and you will end up among all available automation recipes. Available booking recipes are Pre-stay, In-Stay, and Post-stay emails.
Set the automation rules
When you have chosen a recipe, follow the steps and set the rules needed for that specific recipe. You will set:
What to trigger for
Choose which bookings to trigger the automation for. All triggers (except for the end date and start date) have multi-select as an option. If you select more than one, you get to decide whether the recipients should Match all or Match any of the triggers.
When to trigger
Choose when, in relation to their booking, you want the automation to trigger. This step will vary based on what automation recipe you have chosen.
Pre-stay emails, X days before the booking starts
In-stay emails, on the day the booking starts or on the day the booking ends
Post-stay emails, X days after the booking ends
What communication you will be sending
Marketing or non-marketing.
Step 2: Add optional filters to your automation
Once you have set the automation rules, you can choose to add filters to your automation. This means, that you can make your automation more personalized by including or excluding recipients based on demography, orders, or behavior.
Click here to learn more about the audience filter.
By clicking Add a filter, a new window will appear to the right with the MarketHype filter.
Filters you might want
Above the regular MarketHype filter, we have added some suggested quick filters for you to use. Click on one of them, and the MarketHype filter will be updated.
The importance of using Order date when filtering on the Order category
You most likely have contacts in your MarketHype who have made several bookings with you. Therefore we recommend using Order date when filtering the Orders made category. This action is necessary if you don't want to miss out on a contact based on their previous order history.
For example:
Last year a contact booked a stay and included a bottle of wine. This year, the same person books another stay but without including a bottle of wine.
If you then create an automation to go out to everyone who booked a stay but also want to exclude everyone who already bought an add-on product, the contact we mentioned above, will be excluded from the automation since the person bought an add-on product for their previous visit.
To make sure you still reach out to this contact, you need to add the order date for when the add-on product should have been purchased.
How to apply it in the filter
We have made this easy for you by having a default period under Order date saying "is between the booking was made and their stay" or "is between the booking was made and their stay ends". It can be found under Orders made → Order date.
Name your filter
When finished with the filter, give it a fitting name under Name your filter. The name will be visible in the automation flow and make it easier for you and your colleagues to know what extra filter is being used for that specific automation.
Step 3: Create and design your email
When you have set all the rules, it is time to build your email. Click on the Send email block and fill in the information:
From, choose the sender's address.
Subject, the subject of the email. You can use merge tags to make the email more personal and accurate.
Merge tags, in case of the use of merge tags, you will need to fill in a default value (a replacer) that will be used if the attribute of the merge tag can't be found (e.g., you have a merge tag for the first name - "dear {{firstName}} - to avoid space when a customer card is missing that property, you enter "customer" as the default value).
Finally, you create the content. Click on Design email to be taken to the email editor. It is the same editor used when making regular emails, like newsletters. You will also be able to pick up your saved templates here.
Merge tags
Besides MarketHypes' general Merge tags, you will find specific merge tags for booking automations based on order or booking. These are:
Order Id - order number from the external booking system
Order URL - Link to the external booking system where customers can see/modify their order. This varies based on the booking system (not available for BookVisit users).
Order date - when the order was made
(Booking) Start date - arrival date/start date
(Booking) End date - departure date/end date
Step 4: Test your automation
Before you start your automation, we would recommend that you send a test email to yourself or/or your colleagues to make sure you are happy with the result.
Once you start designing your email, the Design email button displayed when entering the Send email block (shown in step 3) will be replaced with Send test email.
If you use merge tags, you'll get to fill in a value for those before sending the test email.
Step 5: Activate your automation
When you are happy with your automation, it is time to activate it. Just press Start and emails will be sent according to the automation rules, and you're done! 🎉
Your automation will now be shown as Started in the dashboard.
Step 6: Analyze your automation
Interested in seeing how many your automation has reached and how many have opened the email? Hover over your automation in the overview and then click on View email Report, and you will find the figures here.
