This article is about the Proxi admin app at app.proxi.co.
Once people start showing up on your maps — signing up for a challenge, submitting a place or an event, joining a program, or landing on one of your listings — you can reach them right from Proxi with an email or a text. You send to an audience (a group of people), not to one address at a time, and Proxi keeps track of who's unsubscribed so you don't have to. If you're new to audiences, start with Audiences: Lists That Keep Themselves Up to Date — this article is about writing and sending the message itself.
Two Kinds of Message
Every message is one of two kinds, and it's worth knowing the difference before you start:
A Blast goes out once, to everyone in the audience, either right now or at a time you pick. Use it for a one-off — an event this weekend, a new map, a thank-you after a big day.
An Automatic message sends itself, over and over, whenever something happens — like a welcome note the moment someone joins. You set it up once and then leave it running. That's its own thing; see Automatic Messages: The Right Note at the Right Moment.
This article walks through sending a blast. The steps for writing are the same either way — automatic messages just add a trigger instead of a send button.
Send a Blast
Go to Audiences. Open the audience you want to reach and go to its Messages tab, then click Create New Message. (Or use Send a Message at the top of the Audiences page and pick who it's going to.)
If this audience can also send automatically, you'll see a Type choice — leave it on Blast.
Pick your Channel: Email or SMS (text). Email lets you add a subject, a longer note, and a button; a text is short and to the point.
Choose When: Now to send right away, or Schedule to pick a date and time.
Write your message (next section), check the live preview on the right, and send.
Shortcut: from a collection, event group, or bulletin board, the submissions area has a Message Submitters link that opens this same composer with the right audience already chosen.
Write It So It Sounds Like You
Subject and body. Fill in the subject in the field beside the email, and write your note right on the email itself — what you type is what people get. Keep it friendly and short; most people read on their phone.
Pick a look. Choose a style so the email fits the moment: Announcement (logo, photo, and a button), Letter (a simple personal note), Promo (big photo, bold button), or Notification (a short headline on a clean card). The email updates as you switch, so you can see each one.
Use their name. Click the First Name chip to drop each person's name into your note — "Hi {first name}," arrives as "Hi Jordan,". You can also use their full name or email. If someone's name is missing, Proxi fills in a friendly "there" instead of leaving a blank.
Your photo and logo. A cover photo, your logo, and your brand color are added for you — change, swap, or clear any of them. (The Letter and Notification looks are text-first and skip the cover photo.)
Add a button. Most emails come with a ready-made button that fits the audience — Manage Your Listing for your businesses, View & Edit Your Submission for people who submitted a place, Manage Your Events for event submitters, Manage Your Membership for program members. You can edit it or add your own button with any link. (More on which buttons show up where in What You Can Send from Each Kind of Audience.)
Replies come back to you. Set the reply-to address so anyone who hits Reply reaches the right inbox.
Preview as you go. You're editing on the real thing — what you see is what lands in the inbox, with your workspace's name, logo, and colors already on it. A text shows the same way, in a phone-style preview.
Save an Email to Reuse Later
Found a note that works well? You don't have to write it from scratch next time. Two small buttons sit at the top of the message area:
Save as template. Give what you've written a name — like "Market thank-you" — and it's saved to your workspace so you can start from it any time.
Start from a template. Pick one of your saved templates and it fills in the subject and message for you, ready to tweak and send.
Templates travel across your maps and experiences: save one while writing to an audience, and it's there when you write to a form or a challenge too. The picker shows the ones that fit what you're sending — email templates while you're writing an email, text templates while you're writing a text. To tidy up, hover a template in the list and click the trash icon to remove it.
Only Send to Some People
For audiences built from submissions you can also send to just part of the group with the Only Send To picker — Everyone, People With An Approved Submission, or People Still Waiting On Review. Handy for a "you're approved!" note to one group and a "thanks, we're reviewing it" note to the other.
Who Doesn't Get It
Proxi looks out for your contacts (and your sender reputation) automatically. Anyone who has unsubscribed from your emails, turned off texts, or opted out of this particular audience is left off the send — you don't have to manage that by hand. Every email includes an unsubscribe link, as required, and choosing it takes them off future emails. For texts, anyone can reply STOP to turn off future texts from you — they'll then show a Texts off tag in your contacts. Email and text opt-outs are kept separate, so turning one off doesn't touch the other.
How Many You Can Send
Each plan comes with a monthly number of emails and texts. A small meter on the Messages tab (and a fuller one on your Subscription page) shows how many you've sent this month and how many your plan includes. It resets at the start of each month. If your plan's number isn't set up yet you'll just see a running count, no limit bar.
Messaging People From a Challenge
Messages for a challenge — a passport, scavenger hunt, or guide — are written on the challenge's own Messages page, not here, because they carry challenge details like each person's unique link. When you open a challenge's registrants audience, its messages show up so you can see them, and the New/Edit buttons take you straight to the challenge to write them. That way nobody gets the same note twice.
Good to Know
A blast goes to everyone in the audience the moment it sends (or at the scheduled time) — it does not follow up with people who join later. For that, you want an automatic message.
Texts are short by nature and can't carry a subject or a styled button the way email does — pick the channel that fits the message.
Whether you can message a given audience depends on your plan; if a send is locked, you'll see an upgrade prompt. Audiences built from your own forms and submissions are the most widely available.