Mass Emailing with AXIS Diplomat 2006

Using email to communicate with your customers and prospects is a cost-effective and proven method of keeping them up-to-date with the latest developments.

AXIS Diplomat 2006 includes, as standard, the ability to send an email mailshot to a range of customers and/or prospects based on a range of selection criteria - you can, for example, select customers by a range of customer groups, order source codes, custom categories and select individual contacts by a selection of contact groups.

Emails may be in either text or HTML format and you can optionally merge customer information into each email to personalise each message sent with, for example, the recipients name.

The ability to quickly create a text format email and send it to a range of customers by, for example, order source code means that the function can also be used to send routine emails as well as for mass marketing. If, for example, a particular sales rep is about to go on holiday for a fortnight, they could easily send a quick message to all of the accounts that they are responsible for, advising them of who they should speak to in their absence.

The HTML format option means that you can create format-rich emails for newsletters etc. and keep your customers informed of your latest developments. Axis First newsletters, for example, are all sent using this function. You can create an HTML format document using whatever design tool you prefer that allows you to create, or export to, HTML. This will, of course, include all web design tools - Axis First recommends Macromedia Dreamweaver - and Microsoft Word, which will allow you to export a standard .DOC document as HTML (although the HTML that it creates is somewhat verbose).

Merging Customer Information into Email Messages

You can insert standard elements of text into your email template, either into the text editor when sending a text format message, or into the HTML document. These standard text elements are replaced by the function with appropriate information before sending the email. These text elements, or variables are as follows:

For example, you could create a text email with the following text:

FAO {Name}, {Company}

Dear {Salutation},

We are pleased to announce the release of our brand new machine; the ZX453, which increases productivity by 50% over the previous model, the ZX452. We will be in your area on our series of Roadshows during the following month so please visit our web site to register for a demonstration.

Yours sincerely,

{UserName}
{UserTitle}
{UserEmail}

 

When sent to Brian Brown at Tools 'R Us by Andy Black, this would look like this:

FAO Brian Brown, Tools 'R Us

 

Dear Brian,

We are pleased to announce the release of our brand new machine; the ZX453, which increases productivity by 50% over the previous model, the ZX452. We will be in your area on our series of Roadshows during the following month so please visit our web site to register for a demonstration.

Yours sincerely,

 

 

Andy Black
Managing Director
andy.black@egpl.co.uk

Email Marketing Best Practice

If you are intending to use email for marketing purposes, we would advise you to ensure that you conform with current best practice.

For up-to-date advice on email marketing, we recommend that you visit the web sites of Business Link, The Information Commissioner, or the Direct Marketing Association UK.

In particular, you should ensure that any email marketing that you undertake includes an opt-out option to allow recipients to elect not to receive future unsolicited emails. To this end, AXIS Diplomat 2006 includes an additional tick box on each contact record:

This allows you to record when recipients opt-out of future email marketing and the email function allows such recipients to be excluded from an emailshot.

In addition to Email Marketing Best Practice, the Data Protection Act also enforces certain rules. There is more information on the web site of The Information Commissioner but essentially, these are as follows:

1. On all marketing messages sent by electronic mail, regardless of who the recipient is.
• The sender must not conceal their identity and
• The sender must provide a valid address for opt-out requests

 

2. On unsolicited marketing messages sent by electronic mail to individual subscribers.
• Senders cannot send such messages unless they have the recipient’s prior consent to do so.
• This strict “opt-in” rule is relaxed if three exemption criteria are satisfied. These three exemption criteria are as follows:
• a. The recipient’s email address was collected “in the course of a sale or negotiations for a sale” AND
• b.The sender only sends promotional messages relating to their “similar products and services” AND
• c. When the address was collected, the recipient was given the opportunity to opt out (free of charge except for the cost of transmission) which they didn’t take. The opportunity to opt-out must be given with every subsequent “unsolicited” message.