Application Support Note

ASN-2004-206

Mailmerging Information into Emailshots

Last Reviewed: 07 December 2005

Products affected: axis diplomat 2004 Accounts

Description

New in axis diplomat 2004 is the ability to send bulk emails to customers and/or prospects. This is clearly a powerful sales and marketing tool but, due to the volume of emails received by most people now, it can be desirable to personalise each email sent out with the recipients name or other details.

The Emailshot function in axis diplomat 2004 allows both plain text and HTML emails to be prepared and sent - plain text is typed directly into the Emailshot function, whereas an HTML email is prepared externally (using any industry-standard web design tool, such as Macromedia Dreamweaver, Adobe GoLive or Microsoft Frontpage). In either case, variable substitutions can be embedded in the text or HTML, which are replaced with real data when each email in the emailshot is sent.

Variable substitutions are enclosed in braces ("{...}"). The valid substitutions are as follows:

Reference	This unique reference is generated as a combination of the axis diplomat Company ID (eg Co1), the customer number, the contact number and the operator ID of the person sending the email - for example, CO1-01/3001-0001-ANDY.
Account	The Customer Account Number from axis diplomat
Date	Today's date, in the form 1st January 2005.
Name	The full name of the contact within the customers organisation that the email is being sent to.
Salutation	The salutation of the contact within the customers organisation that the email is being sent to.
Company Address1 Address2 Address3 Adrdess4 Address5	The name and address of the customer that the email is being sent to.
UserId	The User ID of the operator sending the email.
UserName	The full name of the operator sending the email.
UserTitle	The job title of the operator sending the email.
UserEmail	The email address of the operator sending the email.

Plain Text Example

Dear {Salutation},

This email is to let you know that the latest special offers can be found on our website at www.egplonline.co.uk. Don't forget that you will need to log in using your account number, {Account}, in addition to your user id and password.

Regards

{UserName}
{UserTitle}
{UserEmail}

HTML Example

A similar, simple example can be accomplished using a web design tool, but in addition, substitutions can be included in the HTML source - for example

<p>Dear {Salutation},</p>

<p>This email is to let you know that the latest special offers can be found on our website at <a href="www.egplonline.co.uk">www.egplonline.co.uk</a>. Don't forget that you will need to log in using your account number, {Account}, in addition to your user id and password.</p>

<p>Regards</p>

<p>{UserName}<br />
{UserTitle}<br />
<a href="mailto: {UserEmail}">{UserEmail}</a></p>

Advanced Example for Web Designers

If you manage your own website and wish to record statistics about which of the people that you have emailed have visited your site then you can, for example, embed their account number as a form variable in the URL which they click on - e.g.:

.. please visit our site at <a href="http://www.mysite.co.uk/enquiry.asp?Ref={Account}">www.mysite.co.uk</a> ...

The web page enquiry.asp could then record in a database or email you each time one of your prospects clicks through to the website from your email, including their account number.