What this helps you do
Blasts gives your dealership a direct channel to the customers you have already won, with their consent, for as long as they own what you sold them and before that while they are still looking. The simplest start is an email address: a customer who joins at the parts counter, on the work order, at delivery, on your website form or through an import with their opt-in joins as an email subscriber and receives every message you send to their interests by email. When that customer installs the free Blasts app and connects to your dealership, the Hub notices and normal delivery moves to Blasts on its own, so a ready note or a part that is in lands on their phone, clearly marked as from you, instead of in voicemail. For people you invite one by one, the Hub picks the right path: someone already on Blasts gets a request in the app; someone who is not gets your invitation email with the enrollment code.
When to use it
Put the invitation at the moments you already own, which a dealership has more of than most businesses: the work order when the unit is checked in, the delivery paperwork, the parts counter, the invoice, the service confirmation and reminder you already send, and your website. It happens on every visit, not at one event, and the person at the counter can say it in one sentence: join, choose what you want to hear about, and hear about it.
How to do it
- Open Customers in your Hub and click Sync connections once so your enrollment code is published.
- Print the enrollment kit as a counter card for service and parts and a slip for the delivery paperwork, and put the enrollment code or QR code on the work order and the invoice.
- Add the code, or the standing enrollment link where it is enabled for your Hub, to the service confirmation and reminder your scheduler already sends. You paste that line into your own template once: nothing connects to your dealership software for you.
- Add a customer by email at any counter, or point your website form at the inbound webhook on Integrations or the Zapier app, so each new customer joins as an email subscriber the day they ask.
- If your dealer management system or service list gives you an opted-in customer export, use Add many at once or upload the CSV. Tick the opt-in box for people who already agreed to hear from you and they join as email subscribers right away; everyone else is invited, checked on Blasts and spread out at up to 200 a day.
- When a customer enters your code in the Blasts app, a connection request arrives. With auto-accept on in Settings they are connected the moment they join; with it off, accept them under People who want to connect on Customers.
- Send everyone to the preferences page (the portal link is in Settings) to pick their interests: shopping and availability, service, parts and accessories, owner updates, events.
Example
A marine dealership prints the kit as a counter card for parts and service, puts the code on every work order and starts taking email addresses at delivery. The office adds one line to the service confirmation and uploads the opted-in service list for everyone else. Two months later 1,900 customers are on the list, most of them by email, 600 of them on Blasts already, and when the first cold snap means it is time to winterize, the note goes to the people who ticked Owner Updates and to nobody who was only ever waiting for a pontoon in a certain length.
Good to know
- Connecting is consent-based: a customer can change their interests, mute you or disconnect at any time, so the list stays made of people who want to hear from you.
- This is not a way to message strangers, a purchased owner list or everyone in your market area: a customer must join, by email or on Blasts, before anything is delivered.
- Entering the enrollment code does not connect a customer by itself. It creates a connection request that your dealership accepts, unless auto-accept is on in Settings, in which case they are connected right away. Tell customers to expect that.
- Import columns: your file needs an email column. The Hub also recognizes name, first name, last name, phone, address, birthday, household, and interests (a column headed audiences, tags, groups or lists works too). Files are limited to 5,000 rows and 2 MB, with a preview before anything is sent.
- There is no connector to a dealer management system, a CRM, a manufacturer portal, an inventory feed or a parts system. Your customer list reaches the Hub as a CSV export, through the inbound webhook, or through Zapier.
- The Reach funnel on Customers shows where every customer stands (known, invited, requested, on email or connected) and how they arrived: code, import, webhook, request or Zapier.
- This is Blasts, not SMS: no per-message carrier fee, and no mobile numbers to collect.