Guide to using Calendly’s powerful email and text reminders

Editor's note: Invitee notifications, including email and text (SMS) reminders, are now included in Calendly's powerful Workflows.

With Calendly, you no longer have to spend time manually following up with your invitees to make sure they show up and are prepared for the meeting. You can automate email and text reminders to send to invitees before an event. Reminders can be personalized to include additional meeting details and resources and customized to send at the times you choose.  

Why set up reminders?

Reminders help you stay in contact with invitees and keep attendance rates high. Meeting no-shows are unproductive—you may spend time preparing for the meeting, which is completely wasted if your invitees don’t show up.

You can customize the content of reminders so your invitees have the most important information prior to the meeting. Consider adding a link to a webpage or agenda to help your invitees prepare or offering instructions on how to find your location.

Here are some of the ways our customers achieve their goals with the simple addition of reminders:

How do I set up reminders?

To get set started, edit your event type and click “Notifications and Cancellation Policy” under “Additional Options.” Toggle on either “Email Reminders,” “Text Reminders” or both, and then select “personalize” to customize the content in the reminders, the number of reminders and how far in advance each will be sent. (Please note: You can only automate text reminders for events with fewer than 100 invitees.)

The key to successful reminders is customizing them so you can send them at exactly the right times with the right information to help your invitees prepare for your meeting. There’s no limit to how many reminders you can send before an event, but here’s a general recommendation that works great for many of our users.

Your meetings matter — we make sure they are scheduled efficiently, happen on time and are productive.

For more calendar optimization tips, check out our Google Calendar post and our post about popular Calendly Workflows.