VerticalResponse for AppExchange Blog

How to Email Old Contacts in the New Year

January is nearly over, so it’s almost too late for me to use the words “New Year” in the title of a blog post.  But a title of “How to Email Old Contacts Within a Few Weeks of Valentines Day” wouldn’t have had the same ring to it. 

At a recent email marketing workshop, numerous audience members asked about reaching out to older lists of contacts that they haven’t ever mailed.  Would they need to get permission from these folks again?  We’re they even allowed to mail these lists at all?

These were important questions, as they focused on a gray area that many companies and marketers face when they start building their mailing list - what should be done with older records?

The first inclination of many marketers is to just mail everyone and see what happens.  These people signed up at some point in the past, right?  Even if that sign-up happened three years ago, why wouldn’t they want to hear from you now?  And even if they don’t want to hear from you, well, so what?  Note that this blog post contains more question marks than all my previous posts combined.

The reason you need to be concerned when dealing with old records is because of the potential impact on your reputation.  You may already know, or have at least seen, that Yahoo, AOL, Gmail, Hotmail and just about every other service provider give their users the option to mark emails that arrive in their inbox as spam.  Marking an email as spam is easy - check a box and click a button - and it can have a huge impact on the reputation of the sender.  And the weaker your reputation is with a service provider, the less likely they’ll be to allow your email to be delivered.

One of the main reasons, if not the main reason, that emails get marked as spam is that they are either unexpected or the recipient does not recognize the sender.  So you have to consider: if someone came by your booth at a tradeshow two years ago, for example, are they likely to remember your company now?  The answer to that question is no.  

So when dealing with an older list that has not been previously mailed, there are several questions you should ask about your data:

Have any of the contacts done business / signed up with you in the past year?  If so, do you have a record of when or what they purchased / how they signed up?

If the answer to these questions is yes, then I would recommend creating an email for this group announcing your newsletter and explaining the value it will provide your recipient.  Begin your email by reminding them they made a purchase with you, they signed up on your site, or that you met them in person at a show or in your store.  Acknowledge that it’s been some time since you’ve reached out, but that you’re trying to reconnect. 

If you have recorded data about their purchase or sign-up then use personalization fields to merge that data into your email.  That way each recipient can be reminded as to how they became part of your list.  If you don’t know how to use personalization fields with your email, take a look at this video from our How To Do Everything site.

By being up front with the recipient you establish that you’re actually putting thought into your email program and aren’t just going to spam them. 

Is the new list you want to mail older than a year?  Then you should take a similar approach as above, but you should also not assume the recipient still wants to be part of your mailing list.  You should ask recipients if they want to opt-in (link them to a form where they can sign-up again) and cease mailing anyone who does not opt-in.   

Do you not remember where the contact signed up at all?  Then there’s a good chance they won’t either and you should avoid mailing them entirely.  Otherwise you risk ruining your email reputation and your ability to see your mail delivered properly.  Trying to pick up a few more dollars mailing people who may not want to hear from you is not worth losing the ability to mail those who definitely want to hear from you.  

You don’t have to be an email marketing beginner for older data to be an issue - many companies collect business cards and sign-ups during busy months yet can’t find time to import them into their database immediately. So start the remaining eleven months of this year off right: add those Leads & Contacts you haven’t gotten around to entering to Salesforce and include a Lead Source (meaning where and how you got permission).  Then send a re-introduction email with a can’t-miss offer.

Going forward, track lead sources that are delivering the best referrals, business, or customer traction and continue to support those marketing programs for ongoing success!

Automatically Populate Campaign Member Status Values

If you’ve ever used the members of a Salesforce Campaign to create a list with  VerticalResponse, then you probably know that we can update your Campaign Member Analysis Report with stats showing Opens, Clicks, Bounces and Unsubscribes.  And if you know that, then you probably also know that you have to manually edit your Campaign Member Status Values for each Salesforce Campaign to add values of Opened, Clicked, Bounced and Unsubscribed in order to see these stats in your report.  This step can be an easy one to forget.

Do you wish there was a way you could automatically populate your Member Status Values with the necessary values?  Well, you’re in luck!  Because in today’s blog post, we’re going to look at how you can do this.

Several blog posts ago, I showcased a trigger created by Dave Manelski of onenw.org that made it easier to mark Lead & Contact records as bounced.  That trigger was so helpful, that today I’m showcasing a trigger he’s written that will do just what I’ve described above: automatically populate any Campaign you create with a Type of “VR Email” with the necessary Opened, Clicked, Bounced, and Unsubscribed values.

Before you can put Dave’s trigger to use, you should be sure that:

1.  You’ve created a VR Email Campaign type.  To do this, you go to:

Setup > Campaigns > Fields > Edit Type > New

2.  You’re an admin and you know where to create new Campaign Triggers:

Setup > Campaigns > Triggers > New

I’ll let Dave introduce his code:

This trigger automatically sets the Campaign Member Status of a Salesforce
Campaign to Sent, Opened, Clicked, and Unsubscribed when the campaign is
of the Type 'VR Email'.  This ensures that when you Update Statistics
from VR that the Contact record is updated correctly, and takes out the
step of having to manually set the Salesforce campaign member status to
match the VR statuses.  

Here's the trigger:

// Written by David Manelski, copyright (c) 2008 ONE/Northwest
// This program is released under the GNU General Public License. http://www.gnu.org/licenses

// In order for this code to work, Vertical Response from the AppExchange must be installed and
// correctly configured.  Also, the Campaign Type VR Email must be created.

trigger ONEN_VR_Update_Campaign_Member_Status on Campaign (after insert) {

List<CampaignMemberStatus> newStatuses = new List<CampaignMemberStatus>();

    for (Campaign thisCampaign : trigger.new) {
        if ( thisCampaign.Type == 'VR Email' ) {
            CampaignMemberStatus statusOne = new CampaignMemberStatus(
                Label = 'Opened',
                CampaignId = thisCampaign.id,
                HasResponded = true,
                SortOrder = 7
            );
            newStatuses.add(statusOne);       

           

CampaignMemberStatus statusTwo = new CampaignMemberStatus(
                Label = 'Clicked',
                CampaignId = thisCampaign.id,
                HasResponded = true,
                SortOrder = 8
            );
            newStatuses.add(statusTwo);       

           

CampaignMemberStatus statusThree = new CampaignMemberStatus(
                Label = 'Unsubscribed',
                CampaignId = thisCampaign.id,
                HasResponded = true,
                SortOrder = 9
            );
            newStatuses.add(statusThree);       
        }   
    }
    insert newStatuses;
}

And here’s the test class:

// Written by David Manelski, copyright (c) 2008 ONE/Northwest
// This program is released under the GNU General Public License. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/
public class ONEN_Test_VR_Campaign_Member_Status {

    public static testMethod void testONEN_VR_Campaign_Member_Status() {

        // Insert a new campaign with VR Email type to test
        Campaign newCampaign = new Campaign (
            Name = 'New Campaign',
            Type = 'VR Email'               
        );

        insert newCampaign;

        // Verify that the new Campaign Member Status 'Opened' has been created
        CampaignMemberStatus newStatusOne = [select CampaignId, Label from CampaignMemberStatus where CampaignId = :newCampaign.id and Label = 'Opened' limit 1];
        System.assertEquals('Opened', newStatusOne.Label);

        // Verify that the new Campaign Member Status 'Clicked' has been created
        CampaignMemberStatus newStatusTwo = [select CampaignId, Label from CampaignMemberStatus where CampaignId = :newCampaign.id and Label = 'Clicked' limit 1];
        System.assertEquals('Clicked', newStatusTwo.Label);

        // Verify that the new Campaign Member Status 'Unsubscribed' has been created
        CampaignMemberStatus newStatusThree = [select CampaignId, Label from CampaignMemberStatus where CampaignId = :newCampaign.id and Label = 'Unsubscribed' limit 1];
        System.assertEquals('Unsubscribed', newStatusThree.Label);
    }
}

Try this out and let us know what you think in the comments!  Just remember that, once this is setup, the proper Member Status Values will be automatically created only if you set your Campaign with a Type of “VR Email”.