New engagement models for innovative and enticing customer dialogs

Engaging communications have always been of primary importance to companies. But in markets where competition is strong and communication opportunities are plentiful, you need to ensure that you truly stand out from the crowd. The real differentiator is to know your audiences increasingly well and to target them with enticing communications, time and time again. To do so, it is vital that you know the right touch points, as well as each customer’s preferences and habits, then tailor your messages precisely to their personal needs.

At the Contactlab Conference 2018, Massimo Fubini – CEO and Founder of Contactlab, told us about the new customer engagement models.

 

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The Marketing Cloud and the times of economic man

During his presentation at the Contactlab Conference 2018, Paolo Santori – Chief Product Officer at Contactlab, told us that today, a simple approach is not enough to create lasting relationships with customers. In a similar way, data collection alone is insufficient. It needs to be interpreted correctly, then used in the appropriate way, at just right moment, to be of value.

Data by itself does not represent information. It needs to be elaborated upon and transformed in something far richer – into real knowledge. To achieve this, what we at Contactlab call a human touch is required, to complement Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Moreover, you need to take the human factors in your available data into account, then extrapolate a new, apparently hidden, yet highly valuable understanding.

These are the concepts and goals that have resulted in the birth of the Contactlab Marketing Cloud. – a combination of AI and a human understanding, together with the information contained in your available data, which results in Engagement Intelligence – a powerful and practical understanding of today’s customers and those of tomorrow.

 

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Presenting the Contactlab Marketing Cloud: The platform that transforms customer experiences into personal journeys

Interview with Massimo Fubini
CEO & Founder, Contactlab

 

At the Contactlab Conference 2018, the new Contactlab Marketing Cloud, the digital marketing platform that firmly focuses on engagement intelligence, was presented.

Contactlab now offers a platform that enables brands to know their customers better, while creating direct, personal and long-lasting relationships, by interacting with them on their favorite communications channel in real-time, wherever they may be.

Engagement intelligence means elaborating on the huge amount of available data to know and understand your contacts increasingly well, and transforming broadly targeted messages, into individually personalized dialogs. All this is possible thanks to combining artificial intelligence with the tangible added value of a human touch.

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Enhance customer interactions with the help of Artificial Intelligence

On stage at the Contactlab Conference 2018 Marco Zambardi, Head of Product Management, and Francesca Lombardi, Product Manager, used their personal experiences as customers for two different types of services, to talk about the world of data, and the importance of being able to collect and elaborate upon it, in the most appropriate way.

The Contactlab Marketing Cloud platform and the new intelligence it offers, provides invaluable support. It helps anticipate customer behavior, increase engagement and tangibly boost results, always with a human touch.

 

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Contactlab Artificial Intelligence with a human touch

At the Contactlab Conference 2018 Paolo Santori, Contactlab Chief Product Officer, explained how today, only the interaction between people and Artificial Intelligence can determine a step change in brand and customer relationships.

The Contactlab Marketing Cloud platform is firmly based on that concept. Its ability to distill and extrapolate practical knowledge from a huge amount of data, then deliver the most significant contribution possible, is what makes the difference.

 

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Flow in action: design automated journeys in just a few clicks

Establishing and keeping long-lasting relationships with customers is a daily challenge that every brand has to face. The Contactlab platform makes the Flow module available, which enables you to easily create automated and tailored customer journeys, thanks to an intuitive UI and the click and select design.

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Rendering in real time available for iPhoneX and iOS11

The new real-time rendering feature that Contactlab made recently available gets richer: in Contactsend it now possible to visualize the preview also for iPhone X and Outlook for iOS 11, promptly according to market opportunities.

This is another example about how the company is open towards market innovations and technologies, opening its doors to a new email preview tool directly integrated in Contactsend. There is, in fact, no need to do a test delivery or to get out from the platform.

We remind you that thanks to this feature it is possible to visualize, in just a few seconds and directly in the interface, how the email will appear in the different mail clients, both desktop and mobile, and from the most popular webmail, according to the different operating systems.

As you know, from January 1st 2018, the new email preview system will replace the one historically used. The aim is to assure a more updated service shaped on Contactsend users’ needs. Click here for more info about the service. To know more about costs and subscriptions, you can contact your Contactlab representative or our Customer Service.

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Create your emails more easily with PageBuilder

PageBuilder, Contactsend‘s editor, has been enhanced with new functionality – especially designed to make it even more user friendly. Here’s what is new:

 


 

Organize your templates and emails in folders

Do you have a large number of HTML email pages, making it hard to find the one you need? Would you like to organize and group people’s work in a better way, by creating personal folders? The new features enable you to organize your HTML pages in work folders, and move existing files or save newly created ones, in exactly the right place.

 

  1. Create folders in your templates.

 

To create a folder within a particular template, all you have to do is click the New folder icon in the upper right-hand corner, enter the appropriate name in the box that displays, then click Create. When you are finished, you can see the new folder within the template.

When you select the folder, you can view its contents and create new pages by clicking New page.

Any HTML can easily be duplicated, or automatically recreated within the selected folder.

 

 

 

  1. Move HTML pages into folders.

 

  • To move a file that is already within a template or in a template folder, click the appropriate file to highlight it, click Move in, positioned at the top right of the screen, then select the destination folder. If you want to move more than one HTML file at a time, click all the files that you require, then select the destination folder.
  • If you create a new page, a prompt asks for the appropriate place to save it.

 

 

 

  1. Remove folders.

You can also remove existing folders. While the procedure is simple, it can only be carried out when the folder is empty. The system will not allow a folder to be deleted if it contains HTML files.

 

Organize folders and emails

Folders and single pages within a template can be organized by name or creation date, simply by selecting the Order by name | date buttons, positioned towards the top right of the screen. Folders are displayed first, then email pages. If you want to organize elements within a folder, you should first sort the pages within the template, then select the folder to expand it. The relevant content is organized according to your requirements.

 

 

Expand and reduce your email and template’s structure according to requirements

A new PageBuilder feature enables you to see a minimized or expanded view of the HTML page’s side navigation frame. Select the extpand/collapse (outline) buttons to swap between an expanded version, where you can clearly see all the elements that make up the HTML page, or a collapsed one, which gives you an overview of the page, so you readily choose the particular aspect that interests you.

Finding the last edited or saved item is made simple, through its section name being highlighted in red in the side frame.

 

 

 

 

Share your templates and emails with other companies in your group

As you probably already know, PageBuilder enables you to share templates and, as a result, HTML pages and folders, with other directly associated businesses. This option is especially useful for companies that are part of a larger group with, for example, a multi-layer hierarchical structure.

Significantly, it is now possible, in a business structure such as ‘company level 1 – company level 2 – company level 3’, to share items between the second and third levels, which previously was not possible.

 

 

 

The default configuration is that when the main company creates a new template, it is automatically shared with its subordinate businesses. When a template needs to be hidden, select edit and enable the hidden option.

 

This configuration remains true when new folders are created and their contents are not to be visible unless specifically requested. The main business can choose which emails it wants to share from a template or folder, by clicking on the eye symbol, positioned to the side of the email name.

 

These features are available in Contactsend from Wednesday, September 20th, 2017.

To discover everything about Contactsend and PageBuilder, see their dedicated areas or contact Customer Service. 

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Real-time email rendering in Contactsend

Testing email previews on mobile devices, various mail clients, and webmail are very important tasks that often take time. That’s why we’re introducing the new real-time rendering feature in Contactsend.

With it, you can check exactly how an email will be displayed in a range of desktop or mobile mail clients, as well as the most popular webmail apps, using various operating systems, in just a few seconds… direct in the interface, and without doing a test delivery or using any external tools. You can do all this during the email creation process and, as a result, save yourself  a significant amount of time and effort.

 

You can generate previews from various parts of the Contactsend interface:

  • From the Create section, when creating a new email.
  • From the Communicate section, before confirming the delivery.
  • From the Campaign Archive in the Analyse section, where you can display previews of messages that have already been sent, or recreate an email, if required.
Preview display in the Create section

The new Create section functionality enables you to test how a message will be displayed while it is being created, without sending test emails. And, if anything needs correcting, you can make the changes direct in Contactsend.  As a result, you no longer need to continuously cut and paste content into external applications to make updates, and then generate a new preview to see the results.

Once a preview request is made, thumbnails of the email are produced for different clients… usually within a few seconds. You can also refine the client previews that are generated, by choosing just those you want to see, using any combination of desktop, mobile or webmail filters. If, for example, you are only interested in previewing the results for specific devices or operating systems, you can simply select one or more clients from the drop-down list.

Clicking on any thumbnail displays it at the actual size. Depending on the client, you can view the message in a variety of ways, for example, by removing the images, or by viewing the result when a mobile display is rotated to a  horizontal position.

 

 

You can even try this new Contactsend functionality, without needing it to be activated. In fact, every customer has ten free previews available. And, once these are used up, you can opt to take out a subscription to continue using the service. For more information about pricing and the ways to subscribe, contact your usual Contactlab representative or our Customer Service.

 

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Contactsend: How to use Subscription Forms

In this tutorial we show you how to manage Contactsend subscription forms.

Log in to Contactsend. In the configure section, click on email group. Here you can add a new registration form to an existing email group of your choice. Otherwise, you may decide to create an additional email group and then add a new registration form to it. Remember, a CAPTCHA can only be inserted into new forms. You must enable the field and manually change the form code for the existing ones.

Once an email group is selected or created, you can add a new registration form to it by clicking on create new entry.

Approximately half way down the page, you’ll see the CAPTCHA Management field, which is always on. Fill it out and the check is in place.

Once you’ve created the new form, you can preview your CAPTCHA by going to the registration details section. There, you’ll find a choice of languages for displaying the CAPTCHA check and link.

Please get in touch with our Customer Service or your Sales contact to learn more about this new option and to see why you should choose ContactLab for your marketing campaigns.

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