Send calendar invites with your webinar links
If you're unsure what type of calendar software your attendees are using, you can create links for each calendar type. Any .ics file will work for both Outlook and Apple Calendar users, and a Google calendar link will work for Google Calendar users.
Here are the steps to create and send Outlook, Apple and Google calendar invites:
Create a .ics calendar invite (for Outlook & Apple)
If you are an Outlook user
- Open your Outlook calendar.
- Click New Appointment or click New Items and select Appointment from the dropdown menu. Set up the calendar event as an Appointment, not a meeting, since this invite will be going to an individual recipient and not other contacts on your calendar.
- Add relevant details for the event (Event name, Location, Time, Event description, URL of your event's landing page, Optional event alert.)
Pro tip: this is where you paste your webinar link.
- In the upper left, click Save and Close to save the event to Outlook Calendar.
- Find the event on your Outlook calendar.
- Create an .ics file from the event:
- If you're using Outlook for Windows, click the appointment. Then click the down arrow below the Forward button in the top left, and click Forward as iCalendar. Outlook will attach an iCalendar to your appointment, which you can right-click and save to your desktop. Learn more in Microsoft's Outlook documentation.
- If you're using Outlook for Mac, click and hold on the event, then drag and drop it out of Outlook calendar and on to your desktop. This will create an .ics file on your computer desktop.
If you are an Apple user
- Open Apple Calendar and click the + button in the top left corner.
- In the dialogue box, enter the name of the event, then press Enter or Return. This will create the event on the current day, without any other details, which need to be filled in.
- Click on the event to add additional event details
Pro tip: this is where you paste your webinar link.
- Click Done to save calendar event.
- To create the .ics file, click and hold on the event in Apple Calendar, then drag and drop it out of your calendar and on to your desktop.
Create a Google calendar invite
Please note: the Google calendar you use to create your invite must be public for the link to be accessible to your email recipient.
- Open Google Calendar in your browser.
- In the upper left, click Create.
- A new event dialogue box will open where you can add relevant event information.
Pro tip: this is where you paste your webinar link.
- Make sure the individual event's visibility is set to Public, or using edit your default calendar share settings to make your calendar public.
- Click Save.
- Open the event in Google Calendar. In the upper right, click the More actions dropdown menu and select Publish event.
- In the dialogue box, click Copy next to the Link to event field. Copy and paste this URL into a text editor for easy access.
Send your calendar invite via Email campaign
You can send both .ics file and the Google calendar link in the same email campaign to cover all 3 calendar users for your guests.
To send the .ics file (for Outlook or Apple users)
- In your Humanitix account, navigate to Email Campaigns > Create Campaign. Or if you have a campaign you've built already, click into your existing campaign.
- Scroll down to "Attachments" and click "Upload Files" then select the .ics file from your computer.
To send the Google calendar event
- Simply paste this link to your email campaign's body or use it as hyperlink it to contextualise it. For example: "Add to your Google Calendar".