SFDC Reports as Email Lists

During the course of an evaluation of VerticalResponse, we always ask the question:  "how do you currently generate your lists?"  This is important to know because when using the solution our customers must understand that while we are an integration partner of SFDC, we are also an independent software vendor.  That said, the query tool that we've built for SFDC users to access their data for email lists is always going to be limited to some users because of this relationship.  Part of the survey we launched out recently asked the question:  "How do you generate your lists, using the VR query tool or running SFDC reports?" Here's the low-down utilizing SFDC reports.

If you find that you are not able to get as granular using the VR query tool as you'd like, and you have the SFDC campaigns module, you can simply run an SFDC report to generate your lists.  Below are the steps to create this:

1.  Create a new SFDC campaign ("september newsletter"); set it as "active"
2.  Under your reports tab, create a report using SFDC query fields
3.  After you run the report, select the "add to campaign" button at the top of the page
4.  Find the "september newsletter" campaign you initially created and and add members
5.  Under the VR Email tab, select:  'New Email List' and select the third option titled: "send emails to members associated with an existing salesforce.com Campaign"

You will now see a drop-down window with all of your active campaigns.  The "September newsletter" will be present with the members of the report that you previously ran.  When you click "next step", you will be prompted to our data mapping page as you would when using our query tool.

While the VR query tool is a powerful, easy to use tool to build your lists, we understand that there are advanced queries that SFDC reports are better suited for to build your lists.  The above will let you send campaigns to anyone in your SFDC database with an email address.

If you have questions regarding the above, our VIP customer service group for SFDC users are waiting to help.  You can reach them here:

866-683-7842
VIP@verticalresponse.com

-- Alex
 

Comments

[Chris]

Hi Nina,

I just wanted to follow up on your comment.

You don't need to create a new SF Campaign for each mailing. You can continually update the same campaign with additional records and import the members of the updated campaign to create a new VR list. Although the Campaign Member Status will be overriden with the new status, you can track your statistics through the VR Email History objects. New VR Email History objects will be created for the new email campaigns you send out. Regardless if you're using the same SF Campaign to create your list.

I hope I'm on the right path in answering your question. Alex has followed up with you through email and I'm CC'ed on that email. Feel free to contact me directly with further questions and I would be glad to assist.

Thanks,
Chris

[Nina]

After much confusion and calls to VR, this is exactly how I've come to generate my lists. It gets cumbersome because each month I have to 1. duplicate a SF campaign 2. run a new report 3. reselect my list in VR. Additionally, in SF I now have a ton of campaigns instead of one that will give me consolidated reporting. Would love a way to sync campaign data between SF and VR so that I don't have to generate a new one each month.