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Tutorial: Mail, SMS and Email Out |
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Tutorial: Mail, SMS and Email Out |
Customer correspondence is vital for all businesses and the Portal provides three ways of communicating with your members - Mail Out, SMS Out and Email Out. These three types of communication can be used to promote your business and increase your loyal customers' awareness and interest in your company. In this tutorial we will discuss the two-step process of creating a template and generating and sending a batch of letters, text messages or emails. We will make use of the special placeholders that can be used to retrieve data from the database in this tutorial.
Mail Outs can be used to send letters to your loyalty customers. In this part of the tutorial, we will create a Mail Out template and generate the letters for print.
Start by navigating to the Mail Out Edit screen. If the Navigation Menu is not currently in the Loyalty Menu, select Menus, Customer, Services and Loyalty. Under the Mail Out submenu, select Edit.
The Edit screen allows you to tailor a Mail Out template to your needs. Enter a Description of the template in the provided field at the top of the screen. The body of the letter can be written in the main part of the screen. Use the Update button to save the template. We have provided a default template that you can use as a starting point for your letter - load it with the Load Default button. The New button can be used to create a new template.
After you have saved your template, a message appears saying that the "Voucher / Mailout detail was successfully added / updated." You will also notice that a new drop-down list has been added to the screen, allowing you to select from your list of Mail Out templates to edit them. Also, a Test button has been added which allows you to display what the letter will look like before you generate it. You can also Delete the currently selected template from this screen.
When you are happy with your template, press the Update button to save it. Next we need to generate the letters from the template. The Portal provides a way to target your intended audience based upon Loyalty sales statistics. Click on Generate in the Mail Out submenu of the Loyalty Navigation Menu and the Loyalty Mailout Generation Report screen appears.
The main section of the Loyalty Mailout Generation Report screen contains statistics on who the letter will be sent to - the number of customers, their current points balance and the value of their points. By clicking on the Card Data link the letters can be generated. The top section of the screen contains six tabs controlling screens to target your audience:
Options, allows you to select the Home Site of the targeted customers, whether to send mail only to those members that have selected that as a communication option (Opt In Mail) or all members, and the Mail Out Template (Merge Form) that we are generating.
Points, allows you to target letter recipients according to their points balance. There is an Option to select greater than or less than a specific Points Balance. Use the Multiplier field to increase the Points Balance by the multiplier amount. For example, if you select Greater Than in the Option drop-down, 15 in the Points Balance drop-down and 1,000 in the Multiplier drop-down, then only members with a points balance greater than 15,000 will be targeted.
Selections, allows you to select the Birth Month, Age Range and Gender of your targeted members. Also, you can choose to limit the recipients according to their surname by choosing the starting letter in the Names drop-down list.
Filters, allows you to apply additional filters as created in the Filters screen. Up to four filters can be combined.
Groups, allows you to target members in specific Member Groups.
Card Types, allows you to filter the target audience according to Card Type.
Once you are happy with the options for the Mail Out target audience, click on the Card Data link. A popup menu appears with three options:
Download this Selection saves the filtered list of targeted members in a csv file format that you can view at a later date.
Merge this Selection creates the letters for each of the targeted members.
Display this Selection displays a list of targeted members on the screen.
Select Merge this Selection from the popup menu and the letters will be generated in pdf format. The Portal views all pdf documents using the browser's pdf-viewer. You can save a copy of the pdf or print the letters directly from there using the buttons in the toolbar.
In this section of the tutorial we will discuss how to create an SMS message to send to your members and target your intended audience. Although very similar to a Mail Out, there are a few subtle differences to be aware of when sending an SMS. At the end of this section we will also look at the SMS Report which describes data on your text messaging usage.
Start by navigating to the SMS Out Edit screen. If the Navigation Menu is not currently in the Loyalty Menu, select Menus, Customer, Services and Loyalty. Under the SMS Out submenu, select Edit.
The SMS Out Edit screen allows you to detail a text message to suit your Company's needs. Press the New button to create a new SMS template, enter a Description for the message and the message in the main section of the screen. Press Update to save the changes to the template. Note that the message cannot contain more than 155 characters as this is the maximum number of characters in a standard SMS message.
After you have saved the SMS template, a message appears confirming that the template has been successfully saved and an SMS Reference drop-down list allows you to select a pre-existing SMS template to edit. A Delete button is also added to allow you to delete the selected template.
The next step is to send the SMS to our target audience. Click on Generate from the SMS Out submenu of the Loyalty Navigation Menu. This opens the Loyalty SMS Generation Report screen. The main section of the screen details the currently targeted members according to the options selected in the top section of the screen. Six tabs of options allow you to customise the target audience according to the following criteria:
Options, allows you to select the Home Site of the targeted customers, whether to send the message only to those members that have selected that as a communication option (Opt In SMS) or all members, and the SMS Out Template (Merge Form) that we are generating.
Points, allows you to target message recipients according to their points balance. There is an Option to select greater than or less than a specific Points Balance. Use the Multiplier field to increase the Points Balance by the multiplier amount. For example, if you select Greater Than in the Option drop-down, 15 in the Points Balance drop-down and 1,000 in the Multiplier drop-down, then only members with a points balance greater than 15,000 will be targeted.
Selections, allows you to select the Birth Month, Age Range and Gender of your targeted members. Also, you can choose to limit the recipients according to their surname by choosing the starting letter in the Names drop-down list.
Filters, allows you to apply additional filters as created in the Filters screen. Up to four filters can be combined.
Groups, allows you to target members in specific Member Groups.
Card Types, which allows you to specify which Card Types are targeted in the SMS Out.
Once you are happy with the options for the SMS Out target audience, click on the Card Data link. A popup menu appears with three options:
Download this Selection saves the filtered list of targeted members in a csv file format that you can view at a later date.
Merge this Selection sends the message to each of the targeted members.
Display this Selection displays a list of targeted members on the screen.
Select Merge this Selection from the popup menu and the SMS message will be sent to each of the targeted members. A confirmation message is displayed for each card number that the message is sent to.
It is possible to monitor the amount of SMS usage for the Company from the Portal through the use of the SMS Summary Report. This can be viewed by navigating to SMS Reports in the SMS Out submenu of the Loyalty Navigation Menu. The report outlines the number of SMS messages sent for each day in the selected date range for the selected site and state. You can choose to report on messages sent with or without error, or a combined report can be generated.
In this section of the tutorial we will discuss how to create an email to send to your members and target your intended audience. Although very similar to a Mail Out, there are a few subtle differences to be aware of when sending an email. At the end of this section we will also look at the Email Report which details how many emails have been sent from the Portal on the Company's behalf. As of early 2009, some Company's Portals have been upgraded to a new What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) Editor for Loyalty Email Out. More information on this new editor can be found in the Editor Tutorial.
Start by navigating to the Email Out Edit screen. If the Navigation Menu is not currently in the Loyalty Menu, select Menus, Customer, Services and Loyalty. Under the Email Out submenu, select Edit.
The Email Out Edit screen allows you to write an email template to be sent to your target audience. Press the New button to create a new template. The Update button is used to save the template. The Description field names the template for the Portal database, allowing you to recall it at a later time for editing. The body of the email message is typed in the main text area of the screen below the Description field. Enter a Subject for the email message that will appear in the subject line of the email and a Return Email address. For HTML Emails, ensure that the Convert New Line field is set to No; plain text emails need this field set to Yes. It is also possible to select an Attachment to the email. Note that attachments must be uploaded to the Portal before you can attach it to an email.
Press the Update button to save the email template and a confirmation message appears to inform you that the email has been saved. An EMailout Reference drop-down list appears to allow you to select a previously created template to edit. Also, a new button, Delete, is added to allow you to delete the current template.
The next step is to generate the emails for your target audience. Click on Generate under the Email Out submenu of the Loyalty Navigation Menu. The main section of the Loyalty Email Report Screen that appears lists data on the customers being targeted by the email, while the top section provides six tabs to tailor the target audience according to selected criteria. The six tabs are:
Options, allows you to choose the Home Site of targeted members and whether to send emails to everyone or only those that have selected that method of communication as an Option (Opt In Email). Also, the email template is selected in the Merge Form drop-down list. The Offer for the email can be selected. The Job drop-down list allows you to continue a partly generated email or create a new one to send out. Select a previous job to create the email for new members that have signed up since the last email was sent for the offer, for example.
Points, allows you to target email recipients according to their points balance. There is an Option to select greater than or less than a specific Points Balance. Use the Multiplier field to increase the Points Balance by the multiplier amount. For example, if you select Greater Than in the Option drop-down, 15 in the Points Balance drop-down and 1,000 in the Multiplier drop-down, then only members with a points balance greater than 15,000 will be targeted.
Selections, allows you to select the Birth Month, Age Range and Gender of your targeted members. Also, you can choose to limit the email recipients according to their surname by choosing the starting letter in the Names drop-down list.
Filters, allows you to apply additional filters as created in the Filters screen. Up to four filters can be combined.
Groups, allows you to target members in specific Member Groups.
Card Types, allows you to filter the target email audience by Card Types.
Once you have completed setting the target audience, click on the Card Data link. A popup menu appears with three options:
Download this Selection saves the filtered list of targeted members in a csv file format that you can view at a later date.
Merge this Selection sends the email to each of the targeted members.
Display this Selection displays the list of targeted members on the screen.
Select Merge this Selection from the popup menu to send the email to each of the targeted members. A confirmation message displays to show the card numbers that the email was sent to and also lists any attachments sent in the emails.
Like the SMS Report that describes the amount of text message usage, Email Out also has a report to monitor the emails being sent from the Portal. Select the Email Reports link in the Email Out submenu of the Loyalty Navigation Menu. This report details all emails that have been sent from the selected site and state in the selected date range. You can choose to display data on emails that were sent with or without errors or a consolidated report on all emails.
In this tutorial we have discovered how to use correspondence to target the members in the Portal. This allows you to advertise your venue to a target audience and promote the Company based upon members' spending habits. In turn this will increase interest in your Company.