Campaign channels: email, SMS or both
When you create a campaign you choose a channel: Email, SMS or Both. The right choice is a trade-off between cost, reach and readership.
Email is free to send and suits longer messages. You will be asked for a subject line. Every marketing email carries an unsubscribe link automatically, so you never have to remember it; if you include the {unsubscribe_link} placeholder yourself you control where it sits, otherwise it is appended at the bottom.
SMS
SMS uses your prepaid credits, one per message segment, so keep texts short. Texts are read quickly, which makes SMS strong for time-limited offers. Only patients who opted in to SMS marketing and have a phone number on file receive it.
Both
Choosing Both sends to each patient on whichever channels they have consented to and have contact details for. A patient opted in to both gets both, so reserve this for messages worth the double touch.
Placeholders
The message body supports placeholders that are filled in for each patient:
{patient_first_name}, so the message opens personally.{clinic_name}.{booking_link}, a direct link to your public booking page, which is usually the whole point of the campaign.{unsubscribe_link}, added automatically if you leave it out.
Use Estimate audience before scheduling: it shows how many patients are reachable by email and by SMS for your chosen segment, so you can judge whether the SMS credit spend is worth it before committing.