Broadcasts are one-to-many messages from your school — open-day invitations, school news, term-start notes, practical details for families who are about to visit. They go out both in the app (in the family's account) and by email, so they reach families wherever they happen to check first. You can send one now or schedule it.
Unlike a CRM reply (which is a 1-to-1 message inside an existing conversation), a broadcast is a fresh message to a group. Use it sparingly — a list you write to every week stops opening; a list you write to monthly still does.
News or update: two kinds of broadcast
Every broadcast is one of two kinds, and the recipients you pick decide which:
- News — open days, events, school life, admissions opening, a new programme. Goes only to families who asked for your news. Every news email has a one-click unsubscribe.
- Update — about something the family is part of: the open day they registered for, their visit, their application, their child's enrolment. Goes to everyone involved, with no sign-up needed — which is exactly why it must stay about that thing. Each update email tells the family why they received it ("You receive this because you have a visit booked with …") and has no unsubscribe link.
The test before you send: is this about the visit, application, enrolment or open day these families are already part of? Then it's an update. Anything else — next month's open day, a scholarship, a sports result, a newsletter — is news.
Why the line is drawn there: mainstream email senders such as Mailchimp only send marketing to people who opted in, and Swiss law (UWG art. 3(1)(o)) requires prior consent for advertising emails. Asking first also protects your school's sender reputation — mail that families asked for gets opened rather than reported as spam — and it keeps their trust.
Choosing recipients
The composer groups its recipient lists under News and Update:
- Families who asked for your news (News) — every family who said yes to your school's news and hasn't stopped it since.
- Upcoming Tours (Update) — families with a confirmed visit still ahead. Use for "your visit is on Thursday, here's where to park".
- Families with an application in progress (Update) — applications submitted and not yet decided or closed. Use for interview dates or a document every applicant needs to send.
- Enrolled Families (Update) — families with an enrolled child. Use for term-start information, fees, transport, uniform.
An open day's registrants are not in this list. Open the composer from that open day's card with Message RSVPs: it's locked to that event and available until 7 days after it. See Running an open house.
The count under the recipient picker is who you'll reach: nobody else is added behind it. The list is recomputed at send time, so a family who signs up while you're writing is included. Families who only wrote to you, booked a visit or registered for an open day, but never said yes to your news, are not on the news list, and nothing in the composer adds them.
How families ask for your news
Your news list grows one way: a family says yes. They can do it:
- by ticking Send me news from [your school] on your inquiry form, your visit-booking form or an open-day registration — the box is never pre-ticked;
- with the Get news button on your school page (next to Save and Share, at the top of the page);
- in the optional news row of the consents step when they apply;
- in their own account settings.
A family who asks without being signed in first receives an email with a confirmation link. Nothing is sent until they click it, and the link is valid for 7 days. After that, they stay in control: every news email has a one-click unsubscribe, and they can turn off all school news in their account.
On Premium, the checkbox and the button appear automatically on your page and forms — there's nothing to switch on. To grow the list:
- Mention it at open days and on tours: "if you'd like our invitations, tick 'Send me news' on the form or use the Get news button on our page."
- Link to your school page from your website and social channels, so families find the Get news button.
- Don't try to fill the list any other way. A list of families who asked is the one that opens.
Writing for translation
If your school's auto-translate is on, the broadcast you compose in your own language gets fanned out to French, German, and Italian on send via DeepL. Each family receives the broadcast in their preferred locale (set at signup or by browser language at first contact).
For most broadcasts, auto-translate is fine — DeepL handles conversational and informational tone well. For two situations, compose per-locale manually:
- Legal notices and consents. Word choice matters; DeepL's "good enough" is not good enough for anything with legal weight.
- School-specific terminology that doesn't translate. "Internat" vs "boarding" vs "convitto" can carry different connotations.
The composer has a "Translate manually" toggle that splits the content into four side-by-side editors. You can copy your source language and tweak per locale, or write each from scratch.
You can also skip auto-translate for a single broadcast (e.g. a French-only event invitation to a single canton) while keeping it enabled school-wide.
Anatomy of a broadcast that gets read
Three things reliably separate a broadcast that gets acted on from one that gets ignored:
- Subject line under 50 characters. Above that, it gets cut off on mobile preview panes. The composer shows a character counter.
- One clear action. A broadcast with one button outperforms a broadcast with three links by a wide margin. If you need to say three things, send three broadcasts spaced over a week.
- Verb-first call-to-action labels. "Book a tour" outperforms "Tour information." "RSVP for open house" outperforms "Open house details." Action verbs read as clear next steps.
The button itself comes from the Action Link field at the bottom of the composer. Leave it blank and the broadcast is a pure information message — sometimes the right call (term-start dates, holiday greetings) but usually you want a button.
Frequency and timing
Once or twice a month is a sustainable rhythm for most school audiences. Push past weekly and you start spending goodwill faster than you earn it — the audience stops opening, and the sends that actually matter (offer deadlines, open house dates) arrive to a list that has already tuned you out.
That rhythm is for news. Updates follow the thing they're about: send one when the families involved need to know something, not to keep a schedule.
For timing: Tuesday-Thursday mornings (your local time, between 8-10am) consistently outperform Friday afternoons and weekends. The audience is parents checking email during their morning routine, not families on their phones over dinner.
Tracking what worked
Sent broadcasts appear in the Broadcasts tab with delivery + open counts. Click any broadcast for per-recipient delivery details — useful when a family asks "did you send me anything?" and you can confirm whether the email actually landed in their inbox.
Common mistakes
- Sending news as an update. An invitation to next month's open day sent to "Upcoming Tours" because that list is bigger is news, and it reaches families who never asked for it. Send it to Families who asked for your news; keep updates about the visit, application, enrolment or open day itself.
- Sending without previewing. The composer's translate-manually view is a preview surface — switch through each locale tab before hitting send.
- Using broadcasts for 1-to-1. If you're addressing a specific family ("Hi Sophie, about your daughter's application…"), that's a CRM reply, not a broadcast. Broadcasts go to lists, never to individuals.
- Skipping the action link. Even informational broadcasts benefit from a button — "View full event details on our site" gets clicks the body copy alone won't.