VerticalResponse for AppExchange Blog

What the Heck is Google+ and What Does it Mean For My Business?

Now that Google+ is beginning to open to the public we thought we'd tap our Social Media Manager, Ellery, to give a rundown of what it's all about and why it's relevant to your business.

Another social network?!

Yes, another social network, but one that you should definitely pay attention to. Although dominant in the search market, Google has tried for years to break into social with little luck and some large failures. Google+ seems to be a product of the lessons they've learned along the way. After a week of exploring Google+ and it's features, it's impressing how well thought out the network appears to be. Sure, there are a few off things here and there, and your homepage may feel like a ghost town since only a handful of folks are on it so far, but we see a ton of potential, particularly for businesses.

 

So, how's it different than Facebook?

At first glance, Google+ actually looks a lot like Facebook, probably a good thing when it comes to user adoption. The home page doesn't drift far from the look and feel of the Facebook wall and status updates and the commenting function works essentially the same way as well. Hey, Facebook has honed its user experience for years...no need to reinvent the wheel, right? The key benefits to Google+, though, lie in the features that aren't available (or weren't until just last week) on Facebook in any form. There are five in particular we think really stand out:

• Circles: Circles give you the ability to sort all of your contacts into separate groups based on the nature of your relationship. You can then select which circles you want to be included whenever you share something on Google+. For example, you could have a circle for your family members where you share pictures of your kids and other family news, while keeping a different circle for your friends and even another circle for just acquaintances. By sorting your contacts in this fashion, the information you share can be much more targeted, and in turn, more relevant to the people you're sharing with.
• Hangouts: Hangouts are group video chats. By making yourself available to "hangout" you can start a video chat with up to ten of your contacts who are also online at that time. You can also share things during a hangout (say an article or a youtube video) which everyone can view together. Now that's cool!
• Sparks: Sparks is a feature that recommends content for you based on your interests, online activity, and preferences...sort of like your very own custom content curator. Given Google's expertise in data mining, we expect this feature to become really robust over time. Another nice thing about Sparks is the ability to share things you find to the circles of your choice without ever leaving Google+.
• Huddle: Huddle is a group chat function that can be used online or across Android, iPhone, or SMS. Yes, Facebook just announced the rollout of group chat too, but the integration of mobile and a more professional environment (see next bullet) give Google+ the edge here.
• Aura of professionalism: Okay, so not technically a feature, but we think the professional vibe put forward on Google+ so far (or at the very least, the ability to easily separate friends from professional contacts using circles) is a huge benefit for the network. Google+ seems to take the powerful functionality of Facebook and marry it with the professional environment and discussion topic types of LinkedIn. On top of all that, Google+ functions a bit like Twitter too, in that you can follow someones updates regardless of whether they are following you or not...a huge plus when it comes to finding good content. For these reasons, Google+ has a lot of implications when it comes to business applications.

Okay, then what does Google+ mean for my business?

For the time being, Google has asked that businesses refrain from creating a profile on Google+. The company says that they have plans for businesses to be able to get the most out of the network, but that it's just not ready for that functionality yet. If you're interested in being one of the first businesses on Google+ permitted to create a profile, you can sign up with Google to be notified as soon as profiles are available.

That said, there are several ways right out of the gate that Google+ is good for business:

• Productivity: Between Hangouts, group chats, and the ability to create work specific circles, Google+ is poised to be a powerful internal communication tool at your company. Imagine being able to push certain information or topics towards one or a few departments without bogging down peripheral employees news feeds. With circles, this will be a snap. Have offices spread across several locations but need to arrange a quick face-to-face meeting without springing for a pricey web conference solution? Hangouts has you covered. And for those companies already using Google apps at some level, the inevitable integration with Google+ will be a serious game changer.
• Professional Networking: While Google+ probably won't replace LinkedIn when it comes to things like showcasing your experience and professional recommendations, it will be a threat to areas like industry specific content sharing and discussion groups. Additionally, Google+ enables users to allow other people to contact them via email, regardless of whether they are in each other's circles or not. While not everyone will leave this feature on, for those that do it will open a great avenue for new business contacts.
• Competitive Research: For the same reasons that Google+ is a powerful professional networking tool, it can also be useful when it comes to keeping an eye on and interacting with your competition. Google+ allows you to follow anyone with a Google+ profile regardless of whether the connection is reciprocated. Of course, users can specify whether or not specific content is shared with public circles, but for content that is public, Google+ can be a great way to stay up-to-date on news and announcements in your competitive space.
• Personal Branding: Because Google+ profiles are publicly searchable and viewable - don't worry, you control what is and isn't shared - the network represents a great opportunity for users to brand themselves by maintaining a complete profile and sharing content that speaks to their areas of expertise. By specifying which circles see what, you can tailor this messaging even further. Remember, though, personal profiles are a reflection of the company as a whole, so be sure that employees who share their affiliations with you are representing the company in an appropriate way.

Is Google+ here to stay?

While still in its infancy and admittedly kind of limited to tech geeks and social media experts at this point, we see a ton of potential for Google+ moving forward. By making the effort to truly field test the technology before rolling it out to the masses, we think Google will avoid many of the problems they've had with social in the past. At the end of the day, Google is building a powerful social network on top of an infrastructure (search, email, documents, advertising, etc.) that already has mass adoption. Leveraging this fact is going to be the difference here and what makes Google+ the first legitimate contender to Facebook's social dominance.

Related Posts:

Why You Should Include an Opt-in Link in Your Email Messages

RELEVANT Content is King

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

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.

So, What's a Good Email Open Rate?

Whether you're generating a report for your boss, measuring return on investment o r tracking recipient activity, when it comes to analyzing email marketing efforts many of us find ourselves asking the question "What's a good open rate?" The quick and easy answer is open rates between 15%-30% are considered average. In truth, open rates tend to fluctuate based on send time and send date and vary with industry, list size, messaging and many other variables. 

As an example, email messages related to marketing and acquisition typically have lower open and click rates than editorial or non-profit messages. Similarly, emails sent from within the travel industry tend to have higher open rates than those from the retail industry.

What does this mean for your business? There really is no magic number to achieve when it comes to open rates. The best method for finding a good open rate for your emails is to monitor your own previous and current rates and take steps to improve upon those numbers. More importantly, click rates can be an even stronger indication of customer engagement. Click rates should also be monitored and improved upon. They indicate that a recipient has not only opened your email but that they are also also interested in the content you've sent them.

Steps you can take to improve open and click rates:

• Personalize Campaigns - Creating a personal, one-on-one dialogue will make your emails more welcomed by recipients. Example: Include the recipient's name in the greeting of your email. Check out our video tutorial on how to personalize emails or visit our VR for AppEx tutorials site for more tips!

• Use Customer Data - Previous behavior or past purchases can be used to send targeted emails and appealing messages. Examples: Send a specific message to customers who recently purchased a certain product to promote a similar product on sale. Or, offer your most frequent or highest-value customers a special premium (free shipping, zero setup fees, etc.) as a thank-you for their valued business.
  
  
• Send Timely Follow-ups - Send messages to recipients while your brand is fresh in their mind and interest is high. Example: Quickly follow-up with individuals who have recently visited your website or registered for a newsletter.

• Test, Test, and Test Again- Test send times, subject lines, link types and email template designs to find those that deliver the best click and open rates for your type of business and audience. Example: Perform a split test to measure open rates of two differing subject lines.

Related Posts:

Yep, Subject Lines Are Still Crucial to a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

Get Higher Open & Click Rates with Pre-Header Links

Secrets to Email Campaign Success

Top 10 Things to Test to Put Your Email on the Top 10 List!

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

The email marketing campaigns you create and send weekly, monthly, or  quarterly are your way of letting your recipients know what's going on with your company, what's new, or what deals you've got going on. So it's really important that you're very clear about what you'd like them to do and when you'd like them to do it. Simply put, this is your "call-to-action." With a few simple tips you can get more action from your call-to-action (CTA) resulting in more conversions from your email.

1. Make It a Button: We tested it and the results were clear: A call-to-action in the form of a button instead of a text link can increase your click through rates. The best part is you don't need to be a graphic designer to create one! Visit our friends at Performable.com and you can create one in just a minute or two! After you create your button, simply take a screen shot of it and save it as a GIF or JPEG. Then, just like any other image, insert it into your email and link it where you want it to go. Check out the Adding Images tutorial on our How To Do Everything SalesForce page.


2. Include a Sense of Urgency: Guess what? The more time that goes by before your recipients click on your call-to-action, the more likely they never will. By including a sense of urgency you're encouraging your recipients to click sooner, rather than later. Check out the CTAs below. Think about it...which one compels you more?
   
   Or
   
   
3. Use Contrasting Colors: You want to make sure your call-to-action stands out in the crowd, right? So make it pop! Use bold and contrasting colors so your recipients can't miss it.


4. Size Matters: Just like the color of your call-to-action, the size is going to effect how well it stands out in your email. You want your CTA button to be big, but not too big. So how do you know? Meghan Keaney at Performable.com says, "The biggest point is that when your recipients open the email, it should be the first thing their eyes jump to."
   


5. Keep it Short and Sweet: Your call-to-action should only be between 2-4 words. So, quickly tell your recipients what you want them to do, such as Buy Now, Save Today, Get 25% Off Now, Learn More Today, Check it Out Now, Sign-Up Today and more.

Your call-to-action plays an important role in your email, so it shouldn't be an afterthought in the email creation process. Put some thought into it as well as monitor its performance. Let us know how your next call-to-action performs!

How Small Biz Can Think Big - Interview with VerticalResponse CEO, Janine Popick

As VerticalResponse celebrates its 10th birthday, my team thought it would be great to host a webinar and share some of our experience from a decade in business. Our Director of Retention & Conversion Marketing, Kim Stiglitz, asked me lots of insightful questions and also recorded the webinar so you can listen at your leisure. I hope you enjoy it.

How Small Biz Can Think Big - An Interview with VerticalResponse CEO, Janine Popick

Tell me about how VR was started? What were your biggest challenges?

Janine: I started the company back in 2001 because I’m a glutton for punishment! At the time we were a bit early to market. Small businesses were using email marketing to send messages to their customers but most were using Outlook because there were only tools for the big companies.

One of the biggest challenges was convincing small businesses they needed a tool like ours for deliverability and for reporting (the stuff you don’t get from Outlook).

The other challenge we had was we didn’t raise a bunch of money to get customers, to hire people or to buy servers. We had to be careful about every dime we spent. I didn’t take a salary for years and only started to as the company was doing better. Luckily I had friends, family, and frankly, my own money to keep us afloat until we got to be profitable.

What is your favorite success story of a time when VR had to think like a Big Biz?

Janine: We tested a local marketing campaign here in San Francisco. I was trying to see if we would see a blip in sales doing localized marketing so we:

• Bought billboards in areas where there were a lot of shops and small businesses.
• Bought some ads in our local printed magazine.
• Bought some ads in online newsletters where they talked about local events in the area.
• Sent postcards to the specific zip codes where the billboards were.
• Bought ads on the backs and inside of the buses where the billboards were and where we were sending direct mail.

Finally, we asked customers who owned businesses in these areas if they would be on all of these outlets with a testimonial on how much they like VR.

And it did start a buzz because the owners of the businesses we featured sent out email campaigns talking about it. Then they told all of their friends about it so people were taking pictures of the buses and the billboards.

It was fun to act like a big company, but boy was it a lot of work to find the bus routes and make sure the buses went where the billboards were. Then to target the lists of small business in the local areas was a ton of work. But it went off well and we’re looking to test something like that again since it was so many years ago.

What advice do you have for a small business where the owner also has to do social media?

Janine: Look, every single small business owner or employee in a small biz has to wear multiple hats. You do everything from invoicing, taxes, to taking out the trash and going to the bank. So how do you fit in ANOTHER marketing item on this huge checklist?

The point is you just have to. Your customers are on Facebook and Twitter and you need to be too. It all comes down to finding the right tools, and time management.

I try to do my blogs on the weekends. When I think of something I want to write about, I put it on a list in Google Docs. That’s an online free tool that I can access from anywhere. Then I bang a few out on the weekend where I allocate an hour (for creative thinking) and catching up. I use TypePad for the blog.

Create a Twitter account and a Facebook page. Keep your company Facebook page separate from your personal profile. For this you’ll need a separate email address. Use Gmail for that.

Create a TweetDeck account. From here you can publish to both Twitter and Facebook when you want to announce special offers for your followers. This cuts down on the time of logging into two separate accounts.

What do you think businesses should be thinking about when it comes to their email marketing campaigns?

Janine: Most of the time you’re not going to change the web pages on your site unless it’s a new product or service you’ll send people to, right? But you should always be changing the content in your email campaigns. So I’m a firm believer in that everything starts from email. If you think of email as your center point, you put time and effort into your email campaign. And it’s not only an email, it’s a web page as well. I hope everyone is using a hosted version of your email campaign so that you can publish your email to your Twitter and Facebook and you can include your new blog posts in your weekly emails and send people to it.

I just went through a pretty lengthy process of my annual “unsubscribe”. The reason I did this was that as I looked at newsletters I was subscribing to, I saw that I hadn’t opened them in a while. The reason? Lack of good content. I know we all can get stale sometimes when it comes to new ideas. It happens to everyone. But if you’ve got nothing to say don’t send an email.

These are a few things I think about when I need to write an email or blog post:

• New Product or Service announcement
• Introduce a new member of your team
• Really great offer or discount
• Invitation to an event or webinar
• How-to (From how to wear a scarf that we’re selling to how to write better marketing copy, and everything in between)
• Fun fact about you, your dog, your company or someone in it
• An industry trend that might be important
• Testimonial from a customer or a case study
• Tips & Tricks – Can be a tip on great things to eat with a wine, a recipe from a restaurant, or a tip on how to host a great event.

We have a great customer called PetCamp and they have a wonderful blog where they post pictures of the day campers on it.   
Also ask your email recipients to follow you on Facebook & Twitter. This way, you’ll have a better chance of reaching them depending on what they’re using at any given moment, unless of course you’re getting a 100% open rate and a 100% click rate on your campaigns which people don’t unless they're sending campaigns to 2 people.

In the interest of saving time, I also tell our customers to find the right look and feel for their email campaigns, then use that same template each week. All you need to do is make a copy of it and change up your content. This cuts down the time of creating a new one from scratch and keeps your emails looking consistent.

Are there any other areas that Small Businesses can take advantage of when it comes to getting or keeping customers?

Janine: Well we haven’t even touched on having a website and optimizing it. With simple search engine optimization on your website you can easily see results. If you’re on the 10th page of a search result for the products or services you sell, chances are you’re not going to get those new customers.

Here’s a great thing to do: Go the Google’s free Keyword Tool and type in what you think your keywords are that people search on when they look for products and services you sell. Then see how many average monthly searches are done for that keyword. If there are thousands, you need to make sure your page is optimized for that.




Now look at your own title tags, those are the words that appear at the very, very top of the page on your website. Our top keyword is email marketing and I get to see what the average searches are for that keyword. Are your keywords in that area? If not, you’re missing huge opportunities.




I think Bruce Clay has a ton of resources that are free on his site that could help out business that have questions about SEO.

Aside from SEO I think another area that can be really fun and get the word out about your biz is the use of videos. A great example of this is when VR ran a video contest where we gave out $10,000 in total and split it amongst three people. We used a flip cam where we had a video of me introducing the contest to get it underway. We emailed it out to our customers. Then we asked whoever wanted to be in the competition to make a video about what their business is and why it’s great. Most of them even mentioned us and talked about what they would do with the money. We had them post it on a site and on YouTube and people had to vote on them. What ended up happening was that they put it out on their Facebook pages, their Twitter pages, they sent email campaigns to their customers asking them to vote. We had a ton of traffic, some who never knew about VerticalResponse. We also got to give some cash away to some really deserving businesses who continue to talk about us to this day.

If you don’t want to go that big and make a contest out of it you don’t have to. We’ve posted videos to YouTube recorded on a flip cam that are just 1-2 minute how-tos and they’re getting thousands of views.

If you’ve got a business where it would be fun for your customers to post videos about how they use your products then even better since that’s the most inexpensive form of advertising. Having your customers do the marketing for you.

One last thought on videos: There are also companies like Animoto, who I’m loving right now. All you do is upload photos, choose a song and they instantly create a great video of all your photos to the music. It’s a great alternative to videos.

How can a small business compete with the big guys with their big budgets etc?

Janine: In my opinion the big guys get in their own way. They’re over-processed from every aspect of their company including marketing.

Small businesses have the opportunity to really develop relationships with their customers. You can put a face on your business, and more often than not people want to do business with people.

You can pick up the phone and talk to your customers when they call. And let whomever is picking up the phone have their own personality. Don’t box them into “scripted” conversation. You hired them for a reason, let it show!

Have a contact management system where you collect a piece of information from your customers when they come in or call. Ask them for their birthday for a birthday club you’re running and send out coupons or free gifts for their birthday.

Create a blog where you write about your products or services, but also include some fun facts about what happened at the store, restaurant or office today. It lends some personality to your company.

And make your customer experience as remarkable from the moment a potential customer finds you. This is the most inexpensive marketing tactic you can do that will get your customers talking about you. The big companies will never get this down.

What are you favorite blogs and Small Business resources?

I love Inc. magazine, it’s a wonderful resource for inspiration, how-tos, and just stories about other businesses both good and bad so we know other business owners go through what we go through. 

I really like Bryan Clark who is the CEO of Copyblogger. He breaks it down for you on ideas on how to write copy, headlines, landing pages you name it. It’s a wonderful free resource.

Email Insider – At the risk of sounding email geeky, it keeps me in the loop of what’s going on in my own industry.

Mashable – I love seeing what’s new on the social media front

Ok, that's all I've got for now! Cheers to VR - it's been an amazing first 10, and I can't wait to see what the next 10 have in store!

How To: More Tips for Sharing Between Accounts

If you’re familiar with the way VerticalResponse for AppExchange  accounts work, then you know that each user in your Salesforce Organization with access to VerticalResponse is using their own individual account.

This means that lists, emails and data that live in one user’s account will not show up in an account belonging to another user.

There are various reasons why our accounts work this way - due to the way things are set up both within VerticalResponse and Salesforce - but ultimately this arrangement works well for some customers and causes at least occasional frustration for others. 

No matter which of these two camps you’re in, you may be happy to know there are easy workarounds that allow some sharing between different users. So, what can be shared?

Share Credits by Linking Accounts
Paying for email within VerticalResponse is based on a credit system in which one credit is equal to one sent email message. These credits can be purchased in bulk and used over time as they do not expire for a year.  And if you do buy in bulk, the more you buy, the cheaper your cost per credit becomes.

By default every account keeps its own pool of credits.  Which means if there are multiple users in your org sending out email, that each of their accounts require separate purchases.  Considering credits get cheaper when you buy more of them, this could lead to some VR for AppExchange customers missing out on a lower rate for their purchases.

The good news is that the credit pools for individual accounts can be linked together to share a single group of credits.  Then, whenever a connected account makes a purchase, all the credits from that purchase become part of the larger, connected credit pool.  So if you have multiple VR users in your Salesforce Org, you could designate one account as the credit purchasing account (to ensure the highest discount on credits) - and then ALL accounts will get immediate access to purchased credits.

To set up credit sharing within your own Salesforce Organization, contact appexchange@verticalresponse.com and let them know the usernames for the accounts you’d like to connect together.  Note that each account’s VerticalResponse user name can be found by going to VR Email > Account Information > Log In Information > Email Address.

Share Email Templates via Salesforce Templates:  
Though the emails created within an individual account cannot be directly shared, you can work around this by using Salesforce’s own Template tool.  This tool can be found under Setup > Personal Setup > Email > My Templates.  While templates are saved here for use in Salesforce, they can also be accessed by VerticalResponse to use in our system. 

Our new email editors make it a snap to import any of these Salesforce templates and start using them immediately, so this is a great way to share emails and templates with other people in your Org. 

Check out this other great article about making templates work for you - enjoy! 

Product Update: Download to PDF, Spellchecker & More

We released some more new features and enhancements in the product this month. Below is a quick summary of what's new and cool in VerticalResponse for AppExchange. Once again, all these enhancements were made based on direct customer feedback, so thanks for making your voice heard.  Got other ideas or comments to share?  Let's hear from you!

1. Save Your Email as a PDF:

Our customer support team got this request so many times from customers that they surrounded our User Interface designer with torches and pitchforks and demanded that he add this feature into the product. 

Ok, maybe that didn't happen but they did ask really nicely and our developer James aims to please, so he whipped this up and there was much rejoicing! 

During the "Preview" step of the email creation process you'll now be able to download a copy of the email to a PDF for easy proofreading, sharing for approval rounds, or any of your non-electronic communication needs. Yes, you can even fax a copy of your email to someone who might be interested in your message through faxes!

2. Spellchecker in the New Email Wizard:

 

Now you can easily proof your spelling when creating your email in our slick new Email Wizard editor. Ok, ok you're right we really should have had this in the app when we launched but there's a really interesting story that explains why it was left out.  It all started when -- hey, did we mention you can save your email as a PDF?  Yeah, PDFs are cool.  Moving on...

3. View Your List of Lists:

 

When we re-designed the new launch page for our recent Email Creation Upgrade we really wanted to remove some of the extraneous details and highlight only the most critical bits. We thought this would be more visually appealing and get users through the process even faster. From your feedback it sounds like we were on target for the most part but we did make a mistake by removing the ability to view all the lists you are mailing to on the final launch page. 

We made the assumption that you would be fine with just seeing the total subscriber count that they were about to mail.  Well, you know what happens when you assume.  Yeah, sorry about that. We heard you loud and clear and we're happy to report that you can now see all your lists on the launch page by just toggling between "View" and "Hide."  Thanks for your feedback and for setting us straight, we promise never to disappoint you again (but if we do we'll *totally* fix it in a follow up release).

 

4. Other Stuff:

In addition to the features noted above we also made some additional improvements to the product such as:

• Upgrading the open source engine that powers our Email Canvas product
• Creating and patching up some of our API methods to play nicely within our new Email Editors
• Solving a bunch of bugs and nagging usability issues, specifically related to list loading and email formatting

Resolved: Stats Update Issue for VR Email History Object

Late last week we fixed an issue affecting stats updates back into Salesforce.com for VerticalResponse campaigns. This issue was reported by our customers and our technical team worked to identify the source of the problem as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately, it was a difficult problem to solve and the fix took longer than initially anticipated to uncover.

Things are now back on track and the reporting updates are working correctly. No reporting data was lost and you can simply click the "Update Salesforce" link within your account to re-run the stats updates.

Campaigns sent during the last 2 weeks in May would have been the ones most likely impacted by this stats update failure, but again if you re-run the updates now you'll see all the relevant email stats in the VR Email History objects for both Leads and Contacts.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our Support Team.
Support is available weekdays from 6am - 5pm PST and weekends from 8:30am - 5pm PST.  Call us at 1-866-6VERTICAL (866-683-7842), or launch a Live Chat from our support pages during those hours.

Thanks for your patience while we addressed this issue and we're very sorry for this hassle.

Linking Accounts to Share Credits

True story:  I actually was a VerticalResponse customer before I was an employee.  And, I sometimes found myself wishing that I could share my email credits with other folks in my company.

Did you know that with VerticalResponse for AppExchange you can?

All users of your Salesforce org can share one common pool of credits.  That means that  any Salesforce user can purchase the credits, and all of your VerticalResponse accounts will be linked together to use them.

This is even better news for those of you who work in a company where several different people or departments are sending out VerticalResponse emails, as you can take advantage of bulk pricing, and save some of that precious budget - I'm sure you can find somewhere to use all of that money you'll be saving!

Do you want to link accounts so that you, too, can share VerticalResponse credits?  Simply email vip@verticalresponse.com with the user names / email addresses for the acounts that you want linked together, and we'll make the magic happen.