Act! on your E-marketing

You’ve done all your due diligence; created a plan and got the consent you need to begin your e-marketing campaign. As with any grand plan, results only come from action! While there are a multitude of services available for your e-marketing needs, today I am going to focus on how to use the integrated Act! E-Marketing (AEM) service to awaken your inner marketing champion.

Firstly, for those of you that are unaware, your Act! purchase includes the “Basic” level subscription to the Act! E-Marketing service. This Basic level allows for a list of 500 contacts. This is usually enough to get started with and to get a feel for your e-marketing needs. Other levels are available for purchase, that include a greater number of contacts and additional service features. For details of the plans please refer to the act website.

So you’ve created your AEM account and configured it under the Emarketing menu in your Act! software. Everything is connected and you are ready to start sending your emails. In the previous blog article I talked about creating a sign-up form for your newsletter and putting it on your website as a way of building your email list. Did you know you can use the Lead Capture webform feature for this and the sign-ups get created directly in your Act! database? It’s simple. Create a new group in Act!, our example here is “Newsletter”. Click  on the Lead Capture tab and create webform, select the type of  form and give it a name. Click ok and you are then provided with the HTML code you can put on your website. You now have a newsletter campaign group. No double handling necessary, your email list is practically building itself! How great is that?

Segmenting your contacts and creating specific campaigns that are relevant to them or their industry is a huge factor in successful marketing. In fact, relevant emails are 18 times more valuable than just sending out broadcast emails. This is something we should all consider when sending out our email campaigns. Every business has data, but the challenge is taking the opportunity to use this data in a meaningful way. All of this information, ID/Status, last contact date, last purchase, etc is available at your fingertips in Act! Harnessing this data will allow you to really drill down and segment your lists and truly tailor relevant emails that will actually give you ROI.

You have your email campaign lookup of contacts in Act! ready and you’ve created a snappy, relevant template to send out. (If you are stuck at the creating a template stage, why not take a look at this short tutorial on how to create a template using AEM?) From your Emarketing menu you want to select “Send an Email Campaign”. This will launch the campaign wizard which allows you to choose the contact set you wish to send to and the template you want to send. All that’s left to do is include a catchy subject line and send! Your email is now off into the wide world of the internet! Now that you have sent your email campaign you can use Act! to track its success and build yourself a call list. Simply click on the Emarketing button in your navigation toolbar to get updated information on the opens and clicks of all your email blasts. Here you are given a score for “Hot Leads”, these are top contacts that have shown an interest in your email. This is valuable information that you don’t want to waste. Be sure to schedule a follow-up call with these leads as soon as possible. It is imperative to strike while the information is fresh in their minds.

Act! and thoughtful emarketing can really help your business connect and grow. So if you haven’t already started using your free AEM account (purchased with Act!) sign up now and see what you have been missing out on!