A letter campaign finds new planning applications in your area and posts letters to the people on them, so you're the first builder they hear from. Setting one up takes four steps, shown in the campaign's menu on the left: Search area, Targeting, Letter sequence and Review campaign. A new campaign saves itself as you go, so you can stop and come back to it.
To start, click Letter campaigns in the sidebar, then New campaign.
1. Search area
Give the campaign a name your team will recognise, then choose where it looks: a distance around a town or postcode, or an area you draw on the map. The map shows the last 12 months' planning applications in the area. See "How to choose your campaign's search area".
If you only want to write to leads you pick yourself, click Skip, I'll add leads myself. See "How to run a manual campaign".
2. Targeting
Say what work you're after in your own words and click Set up my targeting, or pick the jobs yourself. On the right you'll see how many leads a year your targeting finds in your area against what your plan covers, and real jobs it would have found in the last 90 days. Every filter is a card you can open and change. See "How to target the right jobs" and "How to use a saved search as your targeting".
3. Letter sequence
Choose who to write to. Most builders start with the applicant, at the address the work is planned for. Then add your first letter, which is posted as soon as a lead is approved, and any follow-ups: some days later, or when the council decides. See "How to build a letter sequence with follow-ups" and "How to write to agents and company owners too".
Last, under Before letters go out, choose whether letters go automatically or wait for you to check each lead, and whether to write to the last 90 days' leads too. See "How to choose auto-send or check each lead first".
4. Review campaign
Check what to expect and every part of your setup. The first time your team starts a campaign, you also choose how letters go out, set a daily budget and choose how your letter credit is topped up. Then click Start campaign. See "How to review and start your campaign".
Once it's running, it looks for new leads every day. See "Running your campaigns day to day" for what comes next.
Why can't I open Letter campaigns?
Letter campaigns need a plan that includes them. Without one, Letter campaigns shows what campaigns do and how to add them to your plan.
Why can't I open a later step?
Each step needs the one before it. Hover over a greyed-out step to see Finish the step above first.