Table Of Contents

1. Compose Mail
2. Inbox
3. Sent Items
4. Groups
5. Customers
6. Create Articles
7. Create Campaign
8. Campaign Statistics
9. Email Settings
10. Reports
11. Integrate Your Form
    

Compose Mail

Stage 1 – Validate Email Addresses
The first page you are presented with is the “Validate Email Addresses” screen. This will scan through all addresses in your system and check for incorrectly formatted emails. It will highlight any that are incorrect and give you the option to change it.

It is advisable to run this before you send an email. Sending emails to incorrectly formatted addresses may cause the system not to work properly.

Stage 2 – Choose Which Type of Mail to Send
The next step is to decide which type of mail you want to send to your customers. There are 4 different options you can choose from. These are:

1. Multipart Campaign – This feature is really what Mailermatic is designed for! You are taken to a page where you can either select an existing email campaign or create a new campaign. See the Creating campaings section for more information on this area.
   
   Basically you click the “Use This Campaign” button next to the campaign you wish to send and you are taken to the next stage.
   
   
2. Plain Text Email – This option presents you with a form where you can enter the subject of an email and a message body. You can also upload files to attach to an email, much like you can in most typical email systems. Emails are sent in “plain text” so do not enter any HTML code or your customers will get very confused!
   
   Note: While this option has many of the features you can expect in a normal email system such as Outlook, it is not designed to be a replacement for Outlook so we would advise against using this solely for normal day to day emails!
   
   
3. Re-Subscriber Email – This option allows you to email those customers who are not yet subscribed to receive emails from you. It presents you with a form that allows you to write an email subject and a basic message to send. There is a pre-set link that is automatically attached below the message that will take the customer to an online page where they can confirm that they want to receive emails from you. This email is sent as “plain text”, like ordinary emails you would send through a program like Outlook.
   
   Warning: There is a risk when sending emails like this as some customers may have already decided to un-subscribe. Sending them emails after they have chosen to un-subscribe may annoy people so we advise caution when using this option!
   
   
4. Mail Merge – For those of you who still live in the Stone Age and don’t destroying the rain forest, you can create old fashion mail merge documents. Although (quite deliberately) fairly crude, this option can still be used effectively.
   
   This form is very similar to the plain text email in that you can enter a subject (used to save the name of the file) and a message. You can also re-use old saved mail merge documents by selecting them from the list under the main form.

Stage 3 – Select Customers
After choosing one of the options mentioned above, you will then be taken to a page that gives you several options of searching and filtering for specific customers to send your message to. The options are as follows:

1. All Subscribed Customers – Hopefully fairly self-explanatory. Choosing this option will send the mail to all customers in your database who have asked to receive emails.
   
2. Customer Groups – You can create email groups much like you can in Microsoft Outlook. Selecting from this list will only send to those customers who are members of the selected group. For more on groups click here
   
3. By Product – If you also use the Webshop product, you can send emails to customers who have bought specific products. This is useful for sending pro-active emails to customers informing them of other, possibly related, products that might interest them.
   
4. Advanced filtering – Underneath is a more detailed filter option allowing you to filter customers by a number of different criteria.

Once you have performed your filter, you are then presented with a list of the customers who will receive the email. You can optionally uncheck any users you do not wish to send to.

If you run our Webshop as well (or any other products and services that have a customer login area) You can also include the login details for each customer by checking the box labeleld "Include Username and Password". This will embed each customer's username and password at the bottom of the email.

You can also optionally include other fields from your customer database by clicking on the link labelled "More Custom Options". This produces a list of all the other available bits of customer specific information you can include in the email. To select an item you must:

• Check the box next to each field you want to print in the email
  
• Optionally label the field (i.e. if you want to includea customer's unique reference number,enter something like "Customer Code" as the label

Stage 4 – Preview Email

This page is gives you one last chance to preview your mail and ensure that you are happy with it. Take this time to review the text and make sure the spelling is correct.

Stage 5 – Send Email

Clicking the “Send” button will do exactly what it says on the tin! You should see a nice little image of an envelope moving across the screen, indicating that your emails are being processed for sending. If you are sending to a large number of customers, this image may stay on the screen for a few minutes. Once the emails have finished processing you will be presented with a page confirming that your emails have been sent.

You may have noticed a little box next to the “Send” button labelled “Start from record”. This tells the system where to start the mail shot from. If for any reason you want to start sending emails from a specific number, change this accordingly. There should never be a need for you to do this, but you never know!

Important notice: If you are sending an email to a large number of customers, this process may take several minutes. If you are running on a slow Internet connection speed, you may receive a time-out error. Fear not! Your email will still be sent so do not try sending it again or you may run the risk of being blacklisted.

Inbox

Should any of your customers reply to one of your newsletters, this is where their reply will come into. This is also where any delivery failure messages will come. It is important that you check your inbox fairly regularly to check for any replies and to unsubscribe or delete any customers whose email addresses have failed. There are a number of options you can perform from this page. These are:

1. Unsubscribe – Checking this box will simply unsubscribe the customer from any future mailings.
   
2. Delete User – Checking this box will permanently delete the user from your system
   
3. Delete Mail – Checking this box will remove the mail from your inbox. It is advisable to always check this box to clear your inbox. The most common usage is to check both the “Unsubscribe” and “Delete Mail” box next to each Delivery failure email to help keep your customer database tidy and to potentially reduce your monthly cost (remember that you are charged based on your number of subscribed customers!)

There are also a number of other operations that can be carried out from the Inbox. In the first column there is a small icon of a folder. Clicking on this will take you to the customer correspondence history for the selected customer (i.e. the number of sent and received messages for the customer).

The second column has the customer’s email address. Clicking on this will take you to a basic email form where you can write back to your customer.

The third column has the subject of the email received. Clicking on this will take you to a page where you can read the email the customer has sent you. From here you can optionally reply to the message or forward it elsewhere.

The next column is the date and time the email was received. The column after that of the two people is where you can save the message against the customer. Clicking on this icon will remove the message from your inbox and save it in the customer correspondence folder.

Please note that although this may act like an email tool like Outlook, it is not designed to be as such and we therefore do not recommend you to use it for all your day to day emails. It is fundamentally an e-Marketing and Newsletter tool.

Sent Items

This page simply displays all the emails you have sent from the system. At the top of the page are all the mail campaigns you have sent and below this is a list of all the “plain text” emails you have sent. This is purely for recording/filing purposes and you can delete these records at any time by checking the box next to each email and clicking the “Delete Selected” button.

Groups

This is where you can set up specific groups of customers to send emails to. Because of the many search and filter options, as well as the integration with the Webshop, we have found that this feature isn’t needed all that often but it is here just the same!

To create a new group, simply choose a name and enter it in the text box labelled “Group Name” under “Add New Group” and click “Add”. You will then see the group added to the “Existing Groups” list.

Adding names to the group is simple, if long-winded, process. Click on the “Edit Details” link next to the group you wish to add. This takes you to a page that lists all customers who are currently in the group (obviously this will be empty if you have just created the group). To add customers, simply type in the name or email address of the customer you wish to add and click “Submit”. If the customer exists, they will appear below the search box. Check the box next to all customers you wish to add and click “Add Selected”. You will then see the name appear under “Existing Names in Group”.

If you search for a customer who is marked as unsubscribed, their name will appear highlighted in red. You can still add this person to a mail group but just make sure they are happy to receive the mail before you start flooding their inbox with mail!

Deleting customers from a group is also fairly straightforward. There is a checkbox next to every name in the “Existing Names in Group” list. Simply check all names you want to delete and click the “Delete Selected” button.

Customers

Customer Manager Plugin Help Coming Soon!

Create Articles

Before you can send an email campaign, you first have to create the articles to go in them. Articles basically comprise the body of the email. You can create as many articles as you like and assign them to as many email campaigns as you like. The articles are made up of a block of text and a single image and are designed to work in “Multipart”. This means that if one of your customers can’t view emails in HTML, they will just see the article title and text.

To create an article, simply enter a descriptive name in the text box labelled “Article Title” and then click the “Add” button. You article will appear at the top of the list below.

Editing Article Text
Once your article has been created, you can start adding content. You will notice that there are two icons next to the title of the article. To edit the text, click on the rectangle shaped icon that looks like a page of text. This will take you to a form where you can edit the following areas of your article:

1. Article Title: This is what you called the article when you created it. This title will appear above the man text so it is important to name it something descriptive and meaningful.
   
2. Article Text: This is where you enter the main information/story. Please note that although it is possible to put HTML code in here, we strongly recommend that you do not as it will not work for those customers who cannot view HTML emails!
   
3. Text Align: You can choose which side of the image the text should appear. Left or right.
   
4. Website Link: You can optionally link through to a specific webpage. All clicks on this link will be tracked so you can see how many people have clicked through and even who did it! It is now also possible for you to link to secure pages (https://) by checking the box labelled "Secure Link".
   
5. Link Title: If you have a click-thru link, it is always a good idea to label it so people know what it is. Something like “Click Here for More Information” or “Visit our website” will usually suffice.

Editing Article Image
From your list of articles you can edit the image by clicking on the icon with a picture of a tree. This will take you to an image gallery where you can upload and remove pictures and assign one to each article. The following steps will guide you through this process:

1. Click on the "Browse" button to locate an image on your computer.
   
2. Optionally resize the image dimensions by entering a numeric value in the box labelled "Compress Width". The default is 200 pixels. If you don't want to change the size of your image, simply leave this box empty.
   
3. Click "Upload New Image" to add this image to the gallery. You will then see a progress bar indicating that your file is being uploaded. This may take several minutes depending on the size of your image and you must wait until this is finished uploading.

Note: You only need to upload the same image once. You can assign the same one image to as many different articles as you like!

Once your image has been uploaded it will appear in the gallery below. To assign an image to the article, click on the link labelled "Select". You will see a preview of the image displayed below the gallery. Click the "Save Changes" button to save the image to the article.

You can remove an image from an article by clicking the "Remove Image" button. To completely remove an image from the gallery, click the link labelled "Delete" in the gallery itself.

Create Campaign

The next stage after you have created all the articles you want is to put together a campaign. The process for adding a campaign is much the same ass for adding an article. Simply enter a descriptive title for the campaign in the box labelled “Campaign Title” and click the “Add” button.

Your new campaign will appear at the top of the list below. There are three actions you can perform once you have created your campaign:

Edit
Clicking on this link will take you to a page that gives you the option to edit the details of the campaign and assign articles. At the top of the page is a form that gives you the option to choose the introduction. This comprises:

1. Subject: This is the subject of the email and is the first thing people will see when the email arrives.
   
2. Introduction: This is a paragraph of text that appears above any articles you select. It can be a general greeting/welcome message and maybe a summary of what is contained in the newsletter.

Once you have entered a subject and introduction message, click the button labelled “Update Changes”.

Current Assigned Articles: Below the form is a list of all articles that are currently assigned to this email campaign. It displays the title of the article, the date it was created, a numerical sort order and the ability to un-assign it from the campaign. You can number the articles in the order you want them to appear in the campaign (1 being the top).

Un-Assigned Articles: Obviously when you first create a campaign, all the articles will be un-assigned. Choose all of the articles you want to assign to the campaign by checking the box labelled “Assign” and clicking the “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the page. This will move all the emails from “un-assigned” to “assigned”.

Delete
Another option that doesn’t really need explaining. Clicking on this link will permanently delete the campaign. You cannot undo this action! You will be prompted to make sure you want to delete the campaign before it is removed.

Use This Campaign
Clicking on this button will take you to stage 3 of the Compose Mail process where you will be prompted to select who you want to send the email to before previewing the campaign and sending it.

Campaign Statistics

This page gives you a list of all of your campaigns and their respective articles and shows you how many times each article has been sent and read and how many click-thru’s each article has had. There is also a link labelled “Stats by Visitor”. Clicking on this link will take you to a page that lists all of the customers who have clicked through the link on the selected article and even how many times they have visited it.

You can clear the stats counter at any time by checking the box next to the appropriate campaign and clicking the “Clear Selected” button at the bottom of the page.

Email Settings

This is where you can control certain display features of your email campaigns as well as certain legal requirements such as signatures.

Email Header
This takes you to a page where you can upload a header for your HTML email and optionally make it a link so people can click on it and be directed to a website. The optimum width for this email header is 600 pixels because this is the standard window size for most email systems.

If you do not want to display a header image, you can check the box labelled “Hide Header”, although this will make your email look rather bland!

Salutation and Sender Display
As standard, the email you send will be addressed from <Your Company> e-Newsletter (e.g. Datapartners e-Newsletter). You can change this to anything you like to make it more personal.

Also as standard, the email will start with one of the salutations that you can choose from the “Preview Message” page. This is done to give the email a more personal feel to it. You can hide this salutation by checking the “Hide Salutation” box. This will hide it on both the preview and the email itself.

Articles
This takes you to the Create Artcles page.

Signature and Disclaimer
As standard, all emails sent from Mailermatic have an unsubscribe link for legal purposes. You can put a signature and/or a legal disclaimer at the bottom of your emails. This will then be automatically applied to every email you send from the system. Even if you have a signature, you can hide it if you want by checking the box labelled “Hide” and clicking “Submit”.

Address
Rather than us including your standard address at the bottom of the email, we now give you the ability to enter your own address. This gives you more flexibility in the format of the address and also gives you the ability to enter a different address to the one we have (you could have a different trading address for example). This is optional, although we do recommend that you include this as it goes down better with the legal monkeys!

Email Footer
This is much like the email header except only this appears at the bottom of the email campaign. You can optionally upload an image and link it to your website. Again, this is completely optional.

Reports

This is a new feature in Mailermatic and will be added to over time. It really shouldn’t need any explanation as to what it does. If there are any other reports that you would like to see in Mailermatic, please either contact us with your suggestions or add it to your Securio Wish List.

Integrate Your Form

If you manage your own website and are familiar with HTML, you can create a registration form on your site to allow your customers to subscribe to your newsletters online. This page lists all of the available form fields and has a basic example of the HTML code. Providing you are comfortable with coding in HTML this should be very straightforward.