June 12th, 2007	i-Tr@der MODULE FACT SHEET	MOD00001a
Document Library	Email Marketing (CMS)

Introduction

CMS (Contact Management System) provides us with comprehensive facilities for storing, retrieving and managing contact with our business partners. The advent of email has meant that we now have a simple method of communicating with a large number of contacts, quickly and at low cost. There are many reasons why we might want to send out an email to a group of contacts, it might be just a quick way of emailing a group of people or to promote something new. Some examples are given below :-

• Account Manager going on annual leave and would like to inform his / her contacts
• Company shut downs
• Seasonal greetings such as Christmas or Easter
• To ask contacts to check the details you have on your contact record and amend accordingly
• To promote a special service or limited offer
• To send a document e.g. a price list to distributors or retailers
• Traditional Mailshot with sales people follow up and performance analysis
• Keep existing customers / business associates informed about latest developments or progress

Most types of email campaigns can be performed by simply selecting a group of contacts and then following a simple wizard which concludes with the emails being sent. Other types require more planning and preparation it really just depends on the nature and purpose of the email campaign.

below a typical email that has been sent through the email campaign module - Figure 001.05

Feature Highlights

The Email Marketing system provides a variety of different techniques for sending out quantities of emails. The different campaigns are listed below with their typical usage :-

CAMPAIGN TYPE	TYPICAL USE
Type 1 : Plain Text	Simple notification emails, impending holidays, absence, happy bank holidays etc.
Type 2 : HTML	Send emails as rich HTML which can include web-page links, images, different text types
Type 3 : Document Attachment	Send PDF's, Spreadsheets, Word documents, images to individually to groups
Type 4 : Text with Hyperlink	Text message with a link to an internet located file or web page
Type 5 : Link Plus	as Type 2, but links through as a User to a desktop, where full auditing of pages visited and clicked through to are recorded for future analysis
Type 6 : Contact details check and Update	Emails all recipients with a link. Once clicked the link provides a form with the details currently stored. The recipient is invited to update / amend the data which is the updated in the Contact Management System (CMS)

below an example of a TYPE 5 destination desktop from an email click-thru - Figure 001.06

Integration with other modules

The Email Campaigns component is part of the CMS system and so integrates wholly with this.

Below are some examples of how recipients click thru's from the Type 5 campaign are viewed :-

Viewing information visited by a Campaign recipient

Once the emails have been sent on a type 5 campaign, all recipients are flagged with a red ball to indicate nothing has yet happened. Once the link to the desktop is used the recipient moves to Orange, then when items on the desktop are clicked on the status moves finally to Green.

below an example of the email recipient status screen from a Type 5 email campaign - Figure 001.07

Looking at which links the email recipient viewed 

When we can see that a recipient status is Green, simply by clicking their name a new window opens showing us which links have been viewed. This feedback is very useful when discussing the email with the recipient. The contact details are shown so that contact can be made with the recipient, we can also record details here about the conversation for future use.

below showing the actual links visited by an email recipient on a Type 5 email campaign - Figure 001.08