Tutorial - SMS mailing

The first step in creating an SMS mailing, is called Setup. Here you can set the name of the SMS mailing and the sender, and set archive options for the mailing.

1. Enter a name in the Name of mailing field.

2. In the From field, enter the sender name or mobile phone number. If you want the recipients to reply to the SMS, you must enter a phone number.

3. Select a folder to place the mailing in from the Folder list.

   How do I create a mailing folder?

4. In the Selection and Project fields, you can associate the mailing with a selection and/or a project.

   Start typing in the Selection or Project fields to search for a selection or project respectively.

5. Click Next to go to the next step.

In the second step, Template, you must decide what your mailing should look like. You do this by selecting an existing template, a previous mailing, or a template from the online library.

A good message template not only supports your message, but also looks good on any device. If you want to ensure consistency in email design across the whole company, using a template is your best bet. The message template will give you the company's look and feel with correct the fonts, colors, social media platforms, and overall layout of your mailing.

After you have figured out what design you want to use, you can choose the template to base your new mailing on with a few clicks.

1. Select a template in one of the following ways:

   • Select one of the available tabs (Online template library, Recent templates, All templates, and so on) to view available mailings or templates on which to base your new mailing.
   • Enter a search phrase in Search templates and press ENTER or click the search icon .

2. In the list below, click a template to select it.

   Note

   If you are using a template from the Online template library, click Use this template in the template preview window. You are automatically redirected to the Content step.

3. Click Next to go to the next step.

In the Content step you enter the content of the SMS.

1. In the SMS text field, enter the text. You can use template variables for contacts here. This works the same way as for email mailings. See Use template variables in messages.

2. Click Next to go to the next step.

When creating a mailing, you must select the recipients of the mailing. You can add recipients from multiple sources. In addition, you can set various mailing options here and also preview the mailing.

Your target list is the group of people you believe will respond best to your message. If you tailor your marketing message specifically to that group, you get a better chance of success and avoid wasting time and effort on people who are not interested.

You can use selections, projects or add single contacts in SuperOffice CRM.

Due to the GDPR legislation, only the contacts that have expressed consent to be legally saved in SuperOffice CRM database and receive information can be added as recipients.

Add recipients from selections and projects

You can add recipients from selections (from both SuperOffice CRM and SuperOffice Service) and projects (from SuperOffice CRM).

1. Under Add recipients, click Selection or Project.

2. Click in the field below and start typing the name of the selection or project you want to add. As you type, a dynamic list displays the matches.

3. Click a selection or a project in the list.

4. Click . The selection or project is added to the Recipient sources list, and the Recipients list is updated.

5. Repeat steps 1-4 to add more selections or projects.

Add contacts from SuperOffice

You can add individual contacts from SuperOffice.

1. Under Add recipients, click Contact.

2. Click in the field below and start typing the name of the contact you want to add, in the field below. You can also enter a company name to display all contacts for a company.

3. Select the contact you want from the list that appears.

4. Click . The contact is added to the Recipient sources list, and the Recipients list is updated.

5. Repeat steps 2-5 to add more contacts. Additional contacts will be added to the same row in the Recipient sources list, and the number of contacts will display in the Name column.

Import a list of recipients (contacts) from an external file

You can add recipients to a mailing by importing them from an external comma-separated file (for example a .txt file created in Notepad or a .csv file created in Excel).

When you import a list of names and email addresses, SuperOffice Marketing will try to locate the imported recipients in the SuperOffice database. If matches are found, the recipients' companies are listed in the Company column in the Recipients list. Any names or email addresses that are not found in SuperOffice, are filtered out and not included in the mailing. This is due to GDPR regulations.

Steps

1. Click Select file.

2. Locate the relevant file (.txt, .csv or similar text format).

3. Click . The list is added to the Recipient sources list, and the Recipients list is updated.

4. Repeat steps 2-4 to add more recipients. Additional recipients will be added to the same row in the Recipient sources list. The total number of recipients will display in the Name column.

Import file format

• Each recipient must be on its own line (row).

• Each recipient (row) consist of the full name and email address.

  Example: "John Smith, john@company.com"

  Note

  You can also specify just the email address. The name will then not be available as a template variable.

• Onsite: Each recipient (row) can also contain a mobile phone number (after the email address) if you are creating SMS mailings. For example: "John Smith, john@company.com, 99999999". Requires the Marketing SMS licence.

Recipient options

Under Options in the lower part of the Recipients screen, you can select options for the mailing based on its type.

Availability per mailing type:

• Override consent and subscription: Select this option to also send the mailing to contacts who have not given their consent to receiving e-marketing or are not subscribing to this mailing type. These contacts are listed with the status No consent in the Recipients list.

• Only one message per email address: Select this option to remove duplicate email addresses in the recipient list (indicated by Duplicate in the Status column). This will update the Recipients list.

• Update recipient list when sending: Select this option to automatically update the recipients list before sending the mailing. See Update recipients list below.

• Include companies: Select this option to include companies as recipients.

  Note

  If a company has no email address, the mailing will instead be sent to all related contacts in the recipient list.

• Prefer company: Select this option to send the mailing only to the companies in the recipient list (and not the related contacts). Each company will only receive one mailing. Contacts that do not belong to a company, will still receive the mailing.

  Note

  The Prefer company option is only available if you selected Include companies above.

Preview the mailing

After adding recipients to the Recipients list, you can preview the mailing as it will look for one of the recipients. Preview is not available for document and SMS mailings.

1. Click a recipient in the Recipients list.

2. Click the Preview button. The Preview window displays the mailing as it will look for the selected recipient. Any template variables (for example, name and company) are replaced by actual contact data.

3. Click links to check that they work, but remember to reset them if they are tracked.

4. Click to close the Preview window.

Review and update the Recipients list

When you add selections, projects, contacts and import lists, the Recipients list is automatically updated. If you selected Update recipient list when sending, the projects and selections are checked before sending the mailing, if contacts were added, removed or edited.

In addition, you can click the Update list button below the Recipients list to update the list manually. Some of the contacts on the list might have changed their consent after you added them.

Click Next to go to Step 5: Confirm. You can still revisit the Recipients step to edit the recipients list.

After you have created your target list, prepared the mailing and tested it, you have finally made it to the exciting part – it is time to send your mailing.

In the final step, Confirm, you can view a summary of the mailing and verify that these are correct. Any error messages displayed in this screen must be solved before the mailing can be sent. The send options are disabled if there are incomplete steps or missing information in your mailing. These are indicated in red.

You can choose whether you want to send your mailing straight away or if you want to schedule the mailing. The advantage of scheduling your mailing is that you can choose the day and time to send your mailing. This means you can send it when you know most of your recipients will open and read your mailing.

The Confirm screen will give you a summary of the previous steps you have taken and let you either send or schedule your mailing:

Send the mailing now

Click Send now to send the mailing immediately. The workflow closes and you are returned to the Mailings tab.

Click the mailing in the list to view sending status and statistics. How to track the mailing and view statistics.

Schedule to send

To not overload your servers during working hours, it would be a good idea to choose a time during the evening. This option is not available for mailings that have already started, temporarily stopped or have finished.

1. Click Schedule.
2. Under Schedule to send at, select one of the following options:
   • Click the Choose date icon , and select the date and time the mailing is to start.
   • Click Set to now to insert today's date and the time.
3. Click OK. The workflow closes and you are returned to the Mailings tab.

What happens now?

You can click the mailing in the list to view sending status and statistics.

To stop the mailing or start a planned mailing ahead of schedule, click the Stop or Start button respectively.