Best Practices for Scheduling
Many programs include an ongoing live event or session repeated at a regular interval. When this is the case, best practices indicate that the event or session should be scheduled on a consistent day of the week and at a consistent interval. This is the preferred automation setup of a perpetually looping series of reminders, but also because it delivers a more consistent experience and avoids “Do we meet today?” confusion for participants.
Examples:
- First Saturday at 10 am Eastern
- Second and fourth Tuesday at 5 pm Pacific
- Every Wednesday at 4 pm Central
Unless the session schedule is going to run for a very limited number of sessions, such as for a course with a set number of delivery weeks, we do not recommend an “every other week on <day of week>” schedule.
For example, if your program includes “2 live sessions a month,” then that should be the deliverables month over month, and a month has 5 of that day that month, the consistency of a “first and third” or “second and fourth” or “first, second, third,” scheduling will inform your participants what happens on the fifth day of the week in that month, i.e., nothing! Sometimes program creators will choose to provide a review or self-study prompt for participants within the program structure in the portal, but this is optional.
Best Practices for Reminders
Now that you’ve settled on a consistent monthly event or session schedule, the next piece to decide on is the reminder series – how many emails, when they should be sent, and whether or not to include a text reminder.
The following is recommended:
Only send day-of reminder or reminders. It used to be common practice to send a day-before reminder, but the reality is that we are not thinking about tomorrow; we are thinking about today. Tomorrow is simply too far in the future to pay attention to now. So our day-prior reminder loses value and efficacy.*
And due to the way a calendar works, a day-before reminder cannot be automated into a looping setup because, at some point, the day-before will not align with the ordinal value of its paired day-after. The 3rd Wednesday will be preceded by a 2nd Tuesday, which will throw the entire campaign scheduling out of kilter and requires a time-consuming ($$) manual adjustment.
Send one day-of email reminder early in the day. We all get too many emails. It’s just a fact of life. So, you want to save emails to your database for high-value touches that get them opening, reading, and clicking. Sending more email reminders than absolutely necessary adds to general email overwhelm and can diminish the perceived value of your emails in general.
*Get the participant to the portal! The most successful programs, especially if the program is a true subscription, run from the portal and not through email. Therefore, the CTA of this day-of email should direct participants to the program page on the portal, which will include the link to Zoom plus other content and touchpoints. This anchors the participant into the value of the program and is an opportunity for the course creator to add value through additional supportive content.
Send a text reminder 15 minutes before the session start. Your customer’s text stream is the most valuable real estate you can have access to, and providing them value in that location can serve your business objectives far beyond just timely reminders.
If you are not using text messages as part of your reminder series, or not all participants have opted into text messages, a second email reminder is recommended 15 minutes before your start with the access link direct to Zoom.
Use Modern Events Calendar as a part of your setup, and instruct participants adding the schedule to their own calendar. This empowers them to set up their own reminders, which anchors them in the responsibility of engaging with the content raising its perceived value.