Send Email campaigns

One of the typical uses of ContactLab is the delivery of groups. Let us start by explaining what we mean by these terms…

A group is a kind of container or channel used to communicate with a certain user target. For example, a company may set up a group to communicate with its suppliers, one for its customers, and another for prospects; the organisers of a Trade Fair will have one group for exhibitors and another for visitors, and so on.
Each issue of the group is called campaign. Once a group has been configured, it may be used for a countless number of campaigns.

Objective

To configure a group and deploy campaigns:

 

1. Designing the group

Decide on the user type and frequency of the group; e.g. a monthly group for suppliers.

2. Configuring the user database

1. Go to configure > user db.
2. Click on “configure database”. A wizard opens to guide you through the procedure. After entering the required data in a screen, click on “Next” to move on to the next one
3. Enter the name and a description of the new database. The name should be consistent with the user type; e.g.: “Supplier database”. Choose whether you wish to enter the users directly through ContactLab or import a list of users from an external file (e.g.: an Excel spreadsheet).
4. If you decide to import an external database, the system will allow you to load the file from your computer. If, instead, you decide to set the database structure and fields via Contactlab, click on “Next” and follow the guided procedure to the end.
5. After creating the database, various filters may be set in order to categorise the users even more analytically (e.g.: Italian and foreign suppliers). Filter setting and management is described in paragraph 6.3.

 

3. Configuring the group

After setting the database, create the group.

1. Go to configure > group.
2. Click on “Configure a group”. A wizard opens to guide you through the procedure. After entering the required data in a screen, click on “Next” to move on to the next one
3. First of all, associate the group with the relative database; our example is associated with “Supplier database”. Enter the name and a description of the new group. The name should be consistent with the user type; e.g.: “Monthly supplier group”.
4. Set the sender data that will appear in the “From” field of the email containing the group.
5. Set the required options: message text-only or in html, etc…
6. If you preset a Subject and contents, these will be automatically proposed for every campaign. This step is optional and any preset contents may always be modified or removed at a later stage.  Click on “Next” to confirm creation of the new group.

 

4. Creating the message

Now the group has been set up, we can create the content. We can create a different message for each campaign. In our suppliers monthly group, we will have a different message for each monthly campaign.

It is best to create the message offline and then copy it to Contactlab.

Open a suitable programme for the type of message: for example, if you want a message in html, use an html editor. Afterwards, save the file to your computer.
The links in the message can be divided into thematic categories for statistical purposes: the use of these categories is described in paragraph 6. You can decide which links must contain MC_Id, i.e. the customer’s unique identifier, by selecting them accordingly.

 

5. Sending the message

When the message is ready, it can be sent. Test campaigns can be sent before effective deployment. Go to create > new campaign. Always click on “Next” to proceed with the next step.

1. Select “Create a new campaign” and then “email” as the delivery channel.
2. Configure campaign parameters (html, text-only, html with alternative text, etc…)
3. Decide whether to add attachments to the message.
4. Insert the campaign subject. In our example, it could be “Supplier News – N° 4, April 2007”.
5. Insert the body of the message. Select “upload from a file on your computer” to enter the previously created message (see point 4 above). The html code may be modified by clicking on “html editor”. The editor is used to make modifications and save them: the html code is automatically generated.
6. Insert the alternative text message (.txt) which will only be visualised by users who cannot receive emails in html format.
7. Choose which links Contactlab must “track”, that is, monitor for statistical purposes.
8. If you wish to send the campaign as a test, set the relative test filter and click on “send test campaign”.
9. To effectively deploy the campaign, instead, select an option in the “Deploy method” area and click on “Finish”. “The campaign will be delivered once” sends the campaign immediately, while “Daily” and “Weekly” set the campaign to be delivered on a recurring basis.
10. To send the campaign, go to the communicate section and click on “The campaign will be delivered once” if you wish to send it immediately; otherwise, click on “Recurring campaigns”.

 

After immediate or recurring delivery is confirmed, the campaign will be sent to the mailboxes of the group users.