VerticalResponse for AppExchange Blog

Get More With VR Statistics

Many of you have become pros at creating attractive emails, uploading perfectly formatted lists and launching your campaigns like clockwork. Great, except one thing may be missing. Reporting! VerticalResponse for AppExchange has great reporting resources to help you determine everything from most popular send times to your most social email. Below are some tips on how to get the most out of the VR Statistics tab in your account.

1. Compare emails- Choose any 5 emails from any time period and see a side-by-side comparison on opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes and social media likes and shares. Example: Use the compare emails feature to determine your most successful send time or best performing newsletter design.

 

2. Create a List- Use results from a recent campaign to create a targeted mailing list. Simply click the campaign name in the VR Statistics tab then the "Create Mailing List" option to build a list of recipients who clicked a link, opened the email, converted, or shared on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Example: Use the "create a list" feature to download a record of all non-responders (those who did not open the email) and send a follow-up message.

 

3. Measure Email Performance- Quickly determine the performance of a particular email over time by selecting the email in the VR Statistics tab and choosing the desired time since launch under "Activity". Example: View open and click trends from 6 hours to 2 weeks after the launch of an email to determine when response rates are the highest and schedule your next email accordingly.

Quick Tip: Don't forget to select "Update Statistics" for recent emails in order to maintain the most up-to-date statistics for your leads and contacts. Next use the "VR Email History Object" to view exactly which emails an individual Lead or Contact has received and see exactly what they did with each of those emails.

Want more on reporting? Visit our Salesforce Statistics page to access video and text tutorials or sign up for our weekly VR for Salesforce live webinar.

Adding Links in Your Emails - Why, What, and How?

After all your hard work writing compelling content and uploading images, adding links to your emails is one of the easiest things you can do to increase customer engagement. With links you can encourage recipients to take action by directing them to visit your website, your blog, sign-up for an event, learn more about special promotions, or purchase products. Links also give particularly interested email recipients a way to easily continue their interaction with your brand or product. 

Where is the best place to add links in my email?

1. Images - Link images (including your company logo) to your website or another relevant URL. Also ensure you place alt text for all your images.

2. Titles or Headers - The titles or headers of specific sections in your emails are often an enticing place to click and make a great place to insert links.

3. Names or Titles - You can link names and titles to a corresponding email address so customers have an easy way to make contact.

4. Buttons or Text - Inserting a "Learn More!" or "Sign-up Here!" button or text link is an easy way to present your call-to-action. Performable offers a great and simple way to build buttons to include in your emails.

5. Relevant Content - Add links within the body or content of your message. They can help to not only break-up content and make it more digestible but are also a great way to get recipients to take some form of action.

6. Table of Contents - Including a small Table of Contents at the top of a long email or an email that includes several different topics (as with a Newsletter) can be a great way to get more people engaged with your message.  A TOC allows recipients to find items that interest them without needing to scroll through the entire email message.  And, of course, the easier you make it for your subscribers to find content that interests them, the more likely they’ll be to take action with your message.  

You can also test the success of different links by accessing the "VR Statistics" tab in your account to view click rates and reporting on your links.

Adding links is simple! Here's how:

• Highlight the text or select the image you'd like to use as a link.
• Click the chain link icon in the Designer's Toolbar (top right hand side in the top row of icons).
• Select the "Link Type" (email or URL)
• Type or paste your link or email into the dialog box.
• Click "Insert" or "OK" and you're all done! If you'd like to test your links, go to the Quick Preview tab found directly above the Designer's Toolbar. 

Want to learn more about adding links in your emails? Visit our How To Do Everything Salesforce site to access one of our video or text tutorials or sign up for one of our weekly VR for Salesforce live demos!

Related Posts:

Think All Customers Love Fancy Graphics and Images? Think Again.

5 Ways to Get More Action from Your Call-to-Action

Think All Customers Love Fancy Graphics and Images? Think Again.

It can be fun and visually appealing to create and design emails with fancy images, elaborate tables and pretty buttons, but do customers respond positively? Not always. Particularly in B2B communications, many email recipients are more likely to respond to text emails.

Why do text emails deliver good results?

1. They tend to be more direct and to the point making busy B2B customers more likely to read the content and respond.
2. Calls to action and links are more apparent in text emails. The visual distractions presented in graphical emails may take attention from key email points.
3. Text emails are more personal and professional and give off a less "mass email" feel.

The VR for AppEx team recently conducted a test with its B2B audience to see if customers were more likely to respond and interact with a graphical email (containing images and graphics) or a text email. The results may surprise you!

Text example on the left, image email on the right.

 

 

We found the text email had both higher open and click rates!

Curious whether your customers will respond better to graphical or text email messages?

Use the VR for AppExchange reporting tools to test the two types of emails. Split your list in two, send one list the graphical email and the other group the text email to measure differences in open and click rates. Remember, you can only track opens with HTML emails so be sure to keep the HTML version in the mostly text email. It's also a good idea to adhere to the 20% images and 80% text rule. You can do this by including a button or two along with your company logo for branding. Happy testing!

Check out our online guide on Designing Your Email for Delivery & Response or view our How To Do Everything Salesforce page for more guides and resources.

Want more? Attend our weekly VR for AppExchange live demonstration, Wednesdays at 10AM Pacific.

Got Questions About Using VR for AppEx?

Did you know every week VerticalResponse hosts a free live demo and Q&A session about VerticalResponse for AppExchange? Whether you're an experienced user or just getting started, we've compiled some of the most commonly asked questions from our demo attendees to help you make the most of your integration. Read below for helpful tips and answers to your top VR for AppExchange questions!

1. I sent an email to my leads and contacts but I can't see the results under VR Email History. Help!

There are a couple of things that could be happening here. The first step to correcting this is to update the statistics from VR to Salesforce. Click on the "VR Statistics" tab, select the email campaigns that you would like to update by clicking the box on the left and then click Update Statistics. This will send the data to your leads and contacts in Salesforce and update the VR Email History.

If you don't see the VR Email History object on your leads or contacts you just need to make that section visible.   Under the "Leads" or "Contacts" tab in your Salesforce account, select any lead or contact then choose "customize page" in the upper right hand corner. You can then add VR Email History to the lead/contact page so the results will be displayed.

Its also possible that you see the VR Email history but are missing the fields that VR can update. This is also an easy fix, again select any lead or contact, click on "Edit Page Layout" in the top right corner and find VR Email History on the page that comes up. Click the icon that looks like a wrench and select the fields you wish to see. We recommend at least adding Mail Date, Email Name, Opened, Clicked, Bounced and Unsubscribed but you can add more if you'd like. Click Ok on that window to save, then click Save in the top left corner of the next page to save the new layout.

2. How can I enable or view dashboards to see VR Email History?

You can view a dashboard with graphs and charts of VR Email History for your contacts and leads.* To view the VR dashboards simply click on the "Dashboards" tab of your account, click on view dashboard and select the "VR Email History" option. Now you can easily view email campaign response rates for bounces, opens, clicks and unsubscribes!

3. Can I create a table of contents so that it links one section of my email to another?

Yes you can! First you need to use the Canvas tool as your email editor. Then choose the part of the email that you'd like to link to, such as the title of a section. Next click the anchor icon (top row, right side of the Designer's Toolbar). This will bring up a dialog box - name your anchor and click Insert. Now that you've "laid anchor", choose where you'd like to place the link to that anchor and highlight the text. This will usually be text or an image near the top of the email, since the main purpose of using an anchor link is to make it easy for readers to navigate to different parts of your message. Click the Chain Link icon (it's right next to the Anchor icon) and use the drop down menu to select the name you gave your anchor earlier. Then click Insert. Done! The new link will redirect you to the Anchor within your email. You can test this by going to the Quick Preview tab and clicking on the link.

                            

If you have other questions about your VR for AppExchange Integration, attend our weekly free live demo Using VerticalResponse for Salesforce. Our Education & Training Manager, Jill hosts a live Q&A session at the end of every demo. You can also visit our help site to access short videos and text tutorials to help you with your integration.

Still have questions? Call our support team toll free Monday through Friday, 6am-5pm PDT at 866-6VERTICAL (866-683-7842) or send an email to AppExchange@verticalresponse.com.

Related Posts:

Make the Most of your Salesforce Integration

Top 5 VerticalResponse for AppEx Guides

*If you are running VerticalResponse for Group Edition the dashboards feature is not available.

Make the Most of your Salesforce Integration

As many of us know, one of the best ways to learn about a tool is to see it in action. Every Wednesday morning at 10 am Pacific time, VerticalResponse hosts a free Live Demo of the VerticalResponse for Salesforce AppExchange integration.

During the demo, you'll get an in-depth look at how to use our service from within your Salesforce.com account. Jill Bastian (pictured right) our knowledgeable Community Education & Training Manager, delivers a variety of Salesforce Integration tips and tactics. Whether, you are new to the integration or have been an avid user, the demo has something for everyone.

Demo Topics include:

• Sign-up and installation on the Salesforce AppExchange

• VerticalResponse for AppExchange Email integration and features overview

• List creation (how to create lists using a query or a Salesforce.com campaign)

• Email creation plus tips and tricks

• Reporting details (how to create and access reports)

• Live Q&A session to address any unanswered questions

The live demo covers a wide range of topics and is a great resource to help you maximize the benefits of your Salesforce Integration. Join us for next week's demo or check out our calendar of events to find a date and time that works best for you!

More Resources:

Download our Step by Step Guide to Email Marketing Success to learn how to get your campaign our the door in no time. And, check out our helpful and aptly named, How to Do Everything pages.

 

Sharing Stats Across Your Org with the VR Stats Tab:Update Early, Update Often

One User Account, Data Access for Everyone

VerticalResponse for AppExchange is a powerful tool for creating, sending and measuring email marketing campaigns from your organization.  While creating and sending emails with VerticalResponse should be managed from one salesforce.com user account, any of the information that results from your mailings can be easily shared across your entire organization.  Your Salesforce users can then leverage that information to create reports, to generate call-down lists or to follow up with recipients of your campaign to close more sales.

The VR Stats Tab: Update Early, Update Often

Once you've created and sent a VerticalResponse email campaign from your account, you can watch the results roll in on the "VR Statistics" tab in your salesforce view:

Review open and click results in real-time after your emails are sent, then watch them grow.  You can even see purchase conversions if you have activated Click-to-Conversion Tracking in your VR account.  Once your results are tracking, update your stats to everyone in your organization by selecting the mailing you wish to update in the checkbox, and clicking the "Update Statistics" button:


If you have other users in your org who rely on this information regularly, be sure to update these stats often. Here at VR, as Salesforce users ourselves, we routinely update the stats of our new email campaigns several times a week, if not daily. As time goes on and the results slow, we update them on-demand as we know our team members need them for their
reports.

Share Data, Share Insights, Share the Advantage

Once these email stats are pushed back up to your salesforce accounts they become available in your organization's 'VR Email History' reports, or can be used as part of a custom lead or contact report that any of your users can generate.  Any user in your organization who has installed the VR for AppExchange package should now have these custom reports pre-loaded in their report folders.  See the example at right for how to access packaged reports.

Once these reports get your data, they include individual contact information for email recipients, as well email behavior information such as bounces, unsubscribes, opens and clicks for each user.
 
Some great examples of how to use this data include:

• Follow up with bounced prospects to make sure their contact information is still current
• Send more detailed information to prospects based on which links they clicked
• Create a follow-up call list of all recipients who opened and clicked on your emails to accelerate your closed sales.

See More About Working with Stats in VR for AppExchange

Discover Our New Templates and Email Editing Options

Since rolling out our new Email Creation Upgrade this Spring, we've added new templates, designs and email editing methods to VR for AppExchange.  Be sure to try our new options to see all that the new upgrade has to offer.  Click the "Start Now" button in your VR for AppExchange session to get started.

 

Did You Know:

• Our new email creation methods include more than 500 pre-designed templates featuring brand-new designs and layouts  

• Our super flexible and easy Wizard features ready-to-use layouts that include sample copy, and our Canvas method lets you toggle between graphical view and HTML Code view.

• You can once again send emails using your existing Salesforce email templates with our fully-integrated Salesforce email template picker. 

• You can always provide your own HTML designs using our freeform editor, too.

Whether you're a start-from-scratch freeform user, you're true-blue loyal to your existing Salesforce templates, or you want to discover how easy it is to get started quickly on high-impact emails with our email wizard, VerticalResponse has an email editing method for you.

Login to Salesforce and start creating an email today!

New! Test Seed Lists + Merge Field Testing

Back in March we launched our big Email Creation Upgrade which provided tons of new enhancements to make creating your email marketing messages easier and faster. At the time of launch one feature that wasn't quite ready for prime time was our new seed list feature for sending pre-launch test emails. So we placed a little "coming soon" blurb into the app to let you know we were working on something better.

First, we wanted to say thanks for your patience while we put the finishing touches on things and today we're happy to announce the new seed list features are available in your account. You can now create and save simple seed lists of just email addresses AND you can use existing mailing lists as seed lists to test personalization merge fields in your email. Login to VR for AppExchange now to check them out or keep reading to get a full overview of these enhancements.

What is a test email and why do I need to send one?
Sending a test email before launching your email is a great way to see how your message will look from your recipient's standpoint when they receive it in their inbox. You can send it to friends, co-workers or your boss to get additional comments and make any last-minute edits before launching your live email. Another added benefit is to see how your email displays in different email programs such as Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail or MS Outlook. Just include those email addresses on your seed list and test away!

Hey, wait -- didn't you guys have a seed list feature in your older email creation tools?
Yup, we sure did but it had some limitations, specifically with testing personalization merge fields. Using our old seed list feature, you could only "test" a few fields within a sample email (First Name, Last Name and Email Address) so there really wasn't an easy way to run a pre-launch test of all your personalization fields above and beyond these defaults.

The Old Way: Limited Merge Field Testing

The New Way: Test as Many Custom Fields as You Like

We know a lot of you use multiple merge fields in your email including standard fields (e.g. Company Name) and custom fields that you add when creating a new mailing list (e.g. Purchase Date) so we've added some new functionality that gives you a few different options for creating and saving seed lists for your test emails.

You can use any of the options below, and for those of you who previously created and saved seed lists in our old workflows, you can now import those to use in the new email creation workflows.

Summary of the new seed list features in your VerticalResponse account:

1. Create and save simple seed lists of "email addresses only"
If you are looking for a quick and easy way to create and save a list of just email addresses then the simple seed list is a great option.  Just create a new seed list, enter in up to 10 email addresses and then save it. You can create up to 20 unique seed lists containing 10 addresses per list which you can use for all future test emails you send.

2. Send a test email to an existing mailing list (max. 10 records)
We figured that the best way to provide additional merge field testing was to use the mailing list management tools already found within your account. Since it's easy to populate fields and create custom ones as well, this works well for test emails that contain any number of personalization merge fields. So when you choose the "Mailing Lists" seed list option you'll be shown a listing of ALL mailing lists within your account that contain 10 records or less. You can send test emails to these lists and also add/update standard and custom fields to help with your personalization testing. Note: any new mailing lists that you create and/or upload into your account will automatically be available to you for test email sending as well.

3. Import your previously saved seed lists into the new email workflow

This last bit only applies to customers who have previously created seed lists in our older email workflows, likely before March 19th, 2010. What you can do now is instantly import those seed lists to use within the new workflows and the following actions will take place.

• With one click we'll import your old seed lists and they will be converted into actual mailing lists so you'll see them in the "Lists" section of your account

• You can edit/update these lists as you would any other mailing list so you can input values for standard and custom fields for testing

• These lists will be available for use for all future test emails, assuming of course that you don't delete these from your mailing list section
  
  

Login to VR for AppExchange now to create your next email and try out the new seed list features!

We'd love to hear your feedback so let us know what you think.

VerticalResponse Seamlessly Integrates with Picnik for Image Editing

One of my favorite features in our recent Email Creation Upgrade is the integration with Picnik. For those who aren’t familiar, Picnik is a web-based image editing tool that makes it really easy to crop, re-size and polish up your images to use within your VerticalResponse email marketing campaigns. They recently got snatched up by Google which is a testament to the great product they have – congrats Picnik people.

See below for a walkthrough, or check out our brief demo video from Jill.

 




There is an interesting story about how this integrated feature got included into our recent release. Early on in the planning stages of the Email Creation Upgrade we brought members of our Customer Advisory Board (CAB) into our offices here in San Francisco. We wanted to give them a preview of what we’d been working on and get their honest, real-world feedback to make sure we were building something they’d love to use.

As we went through our presentation there was a great back-and-forth dialogue and general head-nodding we were on the right track with how we planned to upgrade our email creation tools. But as the meeting went on, we started hearing a common theme in the voices of our users: they wanted an easier and better way to upload images into their email campaigns.

So while we definitely had “upgrade our image editing tools” on our product backlog, it was a bit lower on the list because we had intended to tackle a few other features we thought were more important. What was great about this meeting is that it (a) gave us a good reality check in terms of what real-life users wanted to see in the app (b) took place early enough on in the development process that we were able to shuffle some priorities around to slot this into the big release on March 19, 2010.

So thanks to the CAB folks for your candid feedback – you’ve put your stamp on the VerticalResponse product.  And thanks of course to all our customers who made their voices heard on features they wanted to see included in our Email Creation Upgrade. We’re certainly not done and we’re working on some other great things for release later in the year – stay tuned!

Lastly, if you’re interested in joining our Customer Advisory Board or would like to participate in early access beta programs for new features please let us know via email. We’d love to have you join us.

Josh Feinberg - VP Product Management

 




There is an interesting story about how this integrated feature got included into our recent release. Early on in the planning stages of the Email Creation Upgrade we brought members of our Customer Advisory Board (CAB) into our offices here in San Francisco. We wanted to give them a preview of what we’d been working on and get their honest, real-world feedback to make sure we were building something they’d love to use.

As we went through our presentation there was a great back-and-forth dialogue and general head-nodding we were on the right track with how we planned to upgrade our email creation tools. But as the meeting went on, we started hearing a common theme in the voices of our users: they wanted an easier and better way to upload images into their email campaigns.

So while we definitely had “upgrade our image editing tools” on our product backlog, it was a bit lower on the list because we had intended to tackle a few other features we thought were more important. What was great about this meeting is that it (a) gave us a good reality check in terms of what real-life users wanted to see in the app (b) took place early enough on in the development process that we were able to shuffle some priorities around to slot this into the big release on March 19, 2010.

So thanks to the CAB folks for your candid feedback – you’ve put your stamp on the VerticalResponse product.  And thanks of course to all our customers who made their voices heard on features they wanted to see included in our Email Creation Upgrade. We’re certainly not done and we’re working on some other great things for release later in the year – stay tuned!

Lastly, if you’re interested in joining our Customer Advisory Board or would like to participate in early access beta programs for new features please let us know via email. We’d love to have you join us.

Josh Feinberg - VP Product Management

Try Our Email Creation Upgrades in AppExchange

You know you want to.  

Go ahead. 

Launch that new Email Creation button. 

We dare you...

We dare you to discover how fast and easy it is to build new email campaigns.  

We dare you to try out more than 500 pre-designed layouts to craft eye-catching and effective email messages.

We dare you to see how easy our new drag-and-drop editing can be, and we dare you to test how "WYS" (what you see) really is "WYG" (what you get) with inline editing via our live edit tools.

If you haven't done so already, give it a whirl.  Login to salesforce.com and click the "New Email" link on the VR Email Tab to see the new Email Wizard and other email creation upgrades! Learn about some of the key features, and get an inside look at what an integral part you, our customers, played in this release.

Access the Email Creation Upgrades by creating a new email. You'll have the option to choose from the new Email Creation methods (click "Start Now!"), or you can stick with the 'old' VerticalResponse by clicking 'No Thanks'. But why would you want to, with all of these exciting new features?

  

Spring makes for a great opportunity to re-engage your opted-in leads and contacts.  Try a "Spring Cleaning" seasonal special or take advantage of the Mother's Day shopping push to reach out and engage with your audience.  Build an email, select your mailing list, and watch sales roll in.  

Go on. We dare you.