VerticalResponse for AppExchange Blog

How to Use a Salesforce Report as an Email List

A Salesforce report is a powerful tool that makes it simple to pull up very specific groups of leads or contacts.  So wouldn't it be great if you could use a Salesforce report (or multiple reports) to build an email list? 

Well, it is great, because you can already use Salesforce Reports to create an email list with VerticalResponse.  It is a simple matter of running a report, adding the members of that report to a campaign and then selecting to use that campaign as a list.

Let's take a detailed look at each of the above steps, so you can start turning your Salesforce Reports into mailing lists today. 

Get started by creating a custom Salesforce report.  If you already know how to do this, you can skim through these instructions for putting together a basic report:

1. Go to Reports.
2. Click Create New Custom Report.
3. Use the provided drop-down menu to “Select the type of data you wish to report on.”  Note that running a report on Leads is a good place to start.  Then click Next.
4. Choose to create a Tabular, Summary or Matrix report.  Tabular is the default and the one you should go with if you have no previous experience with Reports.  Click Next after you make a selection.
5. Select the columns to include in your report.  Your choices here have no impact on what ultimately ends up in your list - you’ll be able to select the columns for your list (like First Name, Last Name, City, Record Owner, etc.) during the list creation process in VerticalResponse.  So you can leave this on the defaults if you want.  When you’re done here, click Next.
6. Select the information to summarize.  Your choices here determine how Salesforce will display the summary information for numerical fields within the Report.  This page isn’t necessary for what we’re trying to do here, so you can ignore it and click Next.
7. Order the report columns.  This determines the order in which columns of data are organized within the Salesforce report.  This has no impact on your VerticalResponse list, so you can ignore this page if you want and click Next.
8. Select your report criteria.  This is where you setup the search parameters to put your report together.  You can search based on pretty much any information in your account to find the people you want to mail.  When you’re done setting up these parameters, click Run Report.
9. Now your report is ready to go.  If everything looks good, you can use the Add to Campaign button at the top of the report to select a report to which you can add these folks.  Once they’re part of the Campaign, you’ll be able to turn that Campaign into a VerticalResponse list.
10. If you need to setup a Campaign for this purpose then save this report for now by clicking the Save As button.  And then move over to the Salesforce Campaigns tab.

Salesforce Campaigns are a useful way to keep track of your various marketing campaigns, but they are not available by default in every edition of Salesforce.  So if you’ve never used them before you’ll need to make sure you have access to them.  Of course Campaigns are also, as we’re seeing here, a good way to turn Salesforce Reports into a VerticalResponse list.  Setting up a Campaign is very simple:

1. Go to Campaigns.
2. Click New.  This opens up the Campaign Edit screen.
3. There are a number of things you can do from the Edit screen, but there are only two things you absolutely must do:
- Give your Campaign a name. 
- Check the Active box (if this box is not checked, then the Campaign will not be visible to your VerticalResponse account)
4. Once you’ve done at least these two things, you can click Save.
5. Your Campaign is now created and will be available when you click the Add to Campaign button in the report you ran earlier.  So now you can go back to Reports, find your saved report (which should be right at the top of the page) and add the members of that report to your Campaign.
6. If you want to use more than one report for your mailing list, then you can add several Reports to the Campaign.

With all that work finished (which doesn’t take very long at all once you’ve done it a few times) you can import the members of the campaign as a VerticalResponse list:

1. Go to VR Email.
2. Click New List.
3. Choose the option to Use a Salesforce.com campaign.
4. Select the Campaign you want to use from the provided list.  If the list is really long you can use the Search box to find your Campaign.  Making a selection will open up the Map Your Fields page.
5. The Map Your Fields page allows you to select which pieces of data from your Lead / Contact records you’d like to pull over into your list.  Use the drop down menus and checkboxes to choose if you’d like to pull over First Names, Last Names or any other Standard, Customer, Owner or Account level field associated with your records.  Any data you include can be used to personalize an email sent out to the list.  Note that Email Address is checked off to be included by default since you can’t send an email to a list that does not include the email addresses for each of your recipients.  Click Next Step when you’re done.
6. Now you’ll see a Summary / Preview of the records that are being pulled into the list.  If everything looks good, continue on to Next Step.
7. Give your list a name and click Create List.  Your list will then be created and ready for you to use with an email.

Any thoughts or questions about these instructions?  Let us know in the comments!

Tips for Using Twitter for Your Business

Despite being the punch line of many bad jokes (like the ones made by me in our last newsletter), Twitter is continuing to prove itself as an excellent tool for personal and business communication.  If you’ve been following the news on Iran’s very controversial election over the weekend, then you’ve seen first hand that Twitter can be much more than a tool for snark and navel gazing.  

In my last post I looked at why your business should use Twitter and discussed the basics of getting started.  Now let’s look at some different tips for how your business can use Twitter, just like we do here with our own VR4SmallBiz account. 

As Part of Your Email Marketing

What does Twitter have to do with Email?  Plenty!

VerticalResponse creates a hosted version of every email you send out.  You can take the link to that hosted version and post it to Twitter.  We do this ourselves - and also see lots of clients doing it - as it's a great way to get your newsletters and other emails in front of an audience that probably includes lots of people who may not already be on your subscriber list. 

Note that we do not make any money off people visiting the hosted version, so recommending this is not an attempt to gather a few more pennies from you.  This is simply a great way to get more exposure for the emails you put so much work into.

By the same token, you should reference your twitter page in your emails.  That way people who are already clearly interested in what you have to say will see you have a Twitter account and can start following you.

Quick Updates

Having a sale?  Link to it.  Write a new white paper?  Link to it.  Send out a newsletter as I mentioned above?  Link to it.  Hosting an event?  Link to, errr, you get the idea.  Twitter is a great place to say, “Hey, look over here!  We’re doing something cool.”  This is especially true if you actually are doing something cool. 

You can also use a tool like tr.im to create very short and trackable links for your tweets.

And don’t feel like you have to limit your tweets to just describing what you’re doing.  Feel free to talk about the interests you have from a business or personal perspective.  Link to other resources that may help your customers in some way.  Be sure to show some personality. 

Don’t worry about repeating something you put in a blog or an email, because most of your customers and prospects are not engaging with all your communication.  And those that are probably aren’t going to mind seeing a two sentence message in which you mention something they already know about.

Provide Support

VerticalResponse has a designated support Twitter page (along with designated support twits).  If someone on Twitter has a question, seems frustrated with our application or otherwise is looking for VR related answers, support reaches out to them right away with answers and links to resources.  If an answer will take too long via tweeting, then support links to other support options that the person may not previously have known existed or may not have used without prompting.

Find Prospects

People will be twittering either about you or the products / services you offer.  This is an excellent time to reach out to them with a “we’re here to help” or “have you checked out our service?” type message.  Don’t spam people, though.  Messaging others at random is not very effective and a good way to get yourself labeled a spammer.  And be honest about who you are - pretending to be a customer of your own company will not look good if anyone finds out you’re doing that.

How do you find out if people are mentioning you?  Search for your company name at search.twitter.com.  Or setup automated searches using a tool like Tweet Deck. 

Learn from Others

Follow your competitors.  Follow companies you like or respect.  Look at both how they’re using Twitter and at what they’re saying to the world.  You should do this even if you don’t use Twitter for any other purpose. 

And don’t stop there!  Sign-up for competitors’ email newsletters and updates.  I’m sure their emails aren’t nearly as good as yours, but that doesn’t mean you won’t learn anything.

Richard Huffaker, Education & Training Manager

Twitter: It's Not Just for People Who Use Buzzwords Anymore

You’ve probably heard of Twitter.  You might think it’s cool.  You might think it seems a little silly.  You might be using it right now to let everyone know what you had for breakfast this morning.

Regardless of how you currently use Twitter - or how you feel about it on a personal level - it is a great business tool.  It’s such a great business tool that we even use it here at VerticalResponse.  You can see how we’re using it by checking out our VR4SmallBiz Twitter page. 

But why should your business use Twitter?

It’s Free

Twitter is growing rapidly, but currently generates no revenue due to the whole “not charging our users money” part of their service.  This doesn’t keep it from being very popular with investors who collect internet companies the way wealthy Italian patrons used to collect the work of Renaissance painters.

Is there anything better than a high quality product that also happens to be free?  Except for VerticalResponse? 

It’s Fast

Type in your short, less than 140 character message and it’s immediately out there for all your followers (and anyone else who happens by your page) to see.  This allows you to practically beam important information to your hungriest users and prospects.

That said, don’t go overboard and drown your followers with endless information.  Make sure your tweets have a point of some kind and be sure to listen to what people say in response.

It Gets Everyone Involved

Anyone in your company with their own Twitter account can reach out to fellow tweeters who have questions about your business.  This can be a great way to provide great customer support to people who may not be expecting it. 

Just try to make sure that several people in your office don’t all respond to the same person.  You don’t want to annoy people with seven nearly identical answers to the same question.

And don’t give in to the temptation to have employees pretend to be customers who are randomly saying nice things about your company.  That kind of dishonesty can come back to bite you.

Find Our What People Are Saying About You

People will be 'tweeting' both good and bad things about you.  And will even be tweeting that they’re just using your service or buying your products.  Obviously, not all your customers and prospects are on Twitter.  But, of course, not all your customers drive by that billboard you have up on Interstate 80.  That didn’t stop you from putting that billboard up, and it shouldn’t stop you from using Twitter. 

Because of the way Twitter works, you can easily reach out to people who are talking about your company - or the services your company provides - to offer help or to simply call out something someone said.  You can listen to what someone has to say and then directly respond.  And if you’re not out there directly responding to people who are talking about your services, then you can bet a competitor will be.  Why miss an opportunity to promote your business?

How Do You Get Started?

Appropriately enough, you can sign-up for a Twitter account at twitter.com.  It’s quick and easy.  Be sure to upload a company logo - or other similar image - as your Twitter icon. 

Next, download a free desktop Twitter tool like Tweet Deck.  Not only can you post to your Twitter account using this tool, you can also create automated searches to find people who are mentioning your company, products or services.  This makes it easy to find those folks who may benefit from you reaching out to them. 

Once you're tweeting away, you’ll obviously want to attract some followers (people who follow your twitter account are updated with each of your tweets).  A great way to get started is to find people who are mentioning your company or products, or who are just talking about subjects that line up with either your business or the topics you’ll be tweeting about.  Follow these folks and, if they like what you’re saying on Twitter, there’s a good chance they’ll follow you, too.  You should also reference your twitter account on your website and in your outbound communication (like, say, your emails).

In my next blog post, I’ll go over some specific tips on how you can use Twitter for your business.

Richard Huffaker, Education & Training Manager