Per industry standard, members get an email notification after the payment is processed, and are not sent a reminder before their monthly or yearly bill is processed. However, it's possible you'd like to set up reminders that go out prior to the payment being processed instead!
While Podia doesn’t have an automatic renewal reminder feature, this guide will show you a workaround using email campaigns to send out subscription payment reminders before your customers are charged.
Note: This workaround has a few limitations.
This will work only if the community plan has a single payment term (monthly or annual).
Your customers must be opted in to receive marketing emails to receive these notifications.
Your Podia Email plan must cover the number of subscribers in your account in order to send these reminders, as they go out through the email marketing feature.
This workaround is not compatible for plans that have a free trial, as there is currently not a campaign entrance condition that will enter them into the sequence at time of payment vs the time of sign-up.
Let’s dive in and get these renewal reminders up and running! 💌
Setting up your renewal reminder campaign
To send renewal reminders, we’ll create an email campaign triggered when subscribers join your community.
From your Podia dashboard, click on Email > Campaigns, then click the New email button and select New campaign.
Name your campaign something clear like “Monthly Renewal Reminder Campaign”.
Set the Entrance Condition to Joins community for the specific community plan. This will add subscribers to the campaign as soon as they sign up for your community.
Click + New Email at the bottom of your campaign setup page.
For each email, use the email composer to write and design your reminders. Your email could include:
A friendly reminder of the renewal date.
Details about the subscription plan.
A call-to-action button linking to their account management page if they need to update payment details or manage their subscription.
Next, you will need to adjust your delay for the email.
Enter the number of days after joining when the email should send. Since subscription renewals typically happen monthly (or annually), set your email delays to align with your renewal schedule:
For monthly plans: Set delays every 25-28 days.
For annual plans: Adjust delays to 360 days.
Repeat this process to create as many reminders as needed to match your typical subscription length.
Just like a normal marketing campaign, once your customer receives the last email in the sequence, they will exit the campaign. To avoid this, be sure to add enough emails to the sequence so that they won't likely ever receive the last one!
Once your emails are ready, click Run Campaign at the top of the setup page. This activates the campaign and starts sending reminders to your subscribers. 🚀
Troubleshooting
Help! My customers aren’t receiving the reminder emails.
Help! My customers aren’t receiving the reminder emails.
Ensure the subscribers have opted into marketing emails and that your email plan supports your audience size.
How do I set this up if my plan has an annual and monthly option?
How do I set this up if my plan has an annual and monthly option?
This workaround won’t differentiate between monthly and annual plans. You can create two separate plans (a monthly and an annual) if you wish to offer both options set up with renewal reminders.
For any questions, send us an email at [email protected] or click the purple icon below to chat with our team. 💜