With Direct Mail, you can combine online and offline marketing and strengthen your brand image. In this scenario we demonstrate how to round off an email newsletter campaign with printed invitations to an onsite event for your most engaged contacts.

Key Benefits

  • Promote your on-site event
  • Evoke positive reactions among your customers
  • Ensure a personalized and individual reach
  • Boost contact loyalty
  • Encourage new purchases

Prerequisites

  • Mailing address available in your contacts' data.
  • Activated optilyz integration in your Mapp Engage account.

Scenario

You send out a newsletter announcing that your new store is opening soon. You want to follow up with invitations to the opening event. The form of the invite depends on your customer's engagement:

  • Customers who opened the email will receive an email invitation.
  • Customers who clicked the link will receive a printed invitation.

Procedure

A) Set up a mailing automation in optilyz.

Once your account in optilyz is set up, you have access to the automation creator. Your optilyz contact will help you create your templates.

What you need in advance:

  • List of contacts with their mailing addresses in CSV format. You can export the list from your Engage system. For more details see Export Contact Data.
  • The visuals you want to use for your sendout, in PDF format.


B) Prepare the messages

In this scenario, we need to prepare three messages:

  1. The email message with the newsletter that will be send to the entire group.
  2. The follow-up email message which contains an invitation to the event.
  3. The direct message which contains a printed invitation to the event.

Detailed instructions for each of these message types are available in the following help articles:

 Create an Email Message

  1. In the ​Main Navigation​, click Create​ New > ​Message > Email Message.
    Step 1. ​Type​ of the message creation wizard opens.

    When you create a message in Mapp Engage, do not open additional instances of Mapp Engage in other browser tabs or windows. If you have multiple Mapp Engage tabs open at the same time, there can be conflicts when you save your message drafts. If you attempt to save the same email in multiple browsers, changes can be lost.

  2. Enter your message information, select Email in the Type area, and click Create.
    Step 2. ​Content opens. By default, step 2. ​Content of the message creation wizard opens in ​HTML Code ​ mode. Use this mode to enter or edit the HTML code of your message manually. To enter or edit the HTML code of your message in a graphical HTML editor, click ​HTML Editor​.
  3. To create or edit an email with HTML content, click ​Email (HTML)​.
    ⇒ The content area displays tools to format and edit your HTML.
    To create or edit an email with plain text content, click Email (Text)​.

    Many Mapp Engage customers create a message or a part of a message in an external tool and upload the content into Mapp Engage for sendout. To upload a message or message part, click ​Upload Message​.

    For more information, see Upload an Email or Email Part​.

  4. To add personalized content to your message, click ​Personalization​.
    ⇒ The ​Personalization​ window opens.

    Personalizations make the content of your messages more relevant. Add information from the profile of your contact to the message or use personalization rules to send different content to different recipients.

    For more information, see Personalization​.

  5. To add other types of complex content to your message, click Mapp Engage Variables.
    ⇒ The ​Mapp Engage Variables​ window opens.

    Mapp Engage Variables simplify the addition of many types of content:

    • System links (subscribe, unsubscribe, profile change)

    • Message and system data

    • Social network content

    • Coupons

    • Conversion tracking variables

    • Content

    • And more

    For more information, see Mapp Engage Variables​.

  6. To access additional email settings and tools, click ​Advanced Options​:

    • ​Attachments:​ Adds PDF files, text files, or images to an email message.

    • ​Character Encoding​ Select the encoding Mapp Engage uses for your message. UTF-8 is the default setting.

    • ​Image Handling:​ Inline images or host images on the Mapp Engage servers for sendout.

    • ​Message Category:​ Assign the message to a specific category.

    • ​Email Headers:​ Add header information to your message.

  7. Click Save as Draft​ to save your email for later.
    Click Prepare Sendout​ to configure your message for sendout.

    When you create an email with HTML and text versions, Mapp Engage automatically creates a multi-part message. Mapp Engage sends both message parts together as a MIME message. Mapp Engage also considers the read-mode preferences of the contact. When Mapp Engage sends both HTML and plain text versions, the email client settings of the contact determine which version displays.

 Create a Direct Mail Message

  1. Go to Create > New Message > Direct Mail Message.

  2. Enter message name and if required, a description. Click Next.
  3. Select the direct mail channel you want to use for the message. 
  4. Select the required Template. 

    A Template is created in Optilyz. An Automation combined with a Variation constitute a Template.


  5. Add personalization to the message. Click Next.

    The mappable fields correspond to your Optilyz template. Personalize only those fields that are present in your template.



    You can easily select elements of personalization from a predefined list in the message creation wizard.

    Personalization with Related Data is also possible.

    For more information about message personalization in Mapp Engage, see Personalization.


    Custom Attributes which contain an upper-case letter are not recognized and cannot be used for personalization. You must manually change the upper-case letter to lower-case letter for the personalization to be applied.

  6. (optional) Click Add Individualization if you want to add more fields.

    An Individualization is a personalization that you can freely define. For example, an individualization could be a text at the top of your printed sendout that says "Happy birthday", or "Spring Sale", etc.

  7. (optional) Select coupon list from drop-down list. 
  8. Define the delivery:

    1. Time. This option allows you to send the message immediately, or at a specific date and time. It also allows you to select an audience.
    2. Whiteboard. This option saves the message as a prepared message and allows you to add it to a Whiteboard.
  9. Click Next. You can now see the summary of your message configuration.
  10. Click Save to save the message. Click Send to send the message immediately.


C) Build the Whiteboard automation

Create a scheduled Whiteboard that sends out a newsletter and the splits into two scenarios depending on whether the contact only opened the email, or also clicked on a link.

  1. Create a new scheduled Whiteboard.
  2. Select the required Group.
  3. Select the job Send Email Message and configure it.
  4. Add the filter Email Reaction.
  5. Add two positive paths:
    1. Clickers - this path is for those contacts that clicked a link inside the email.
      1. Specify the date and time.
      2. Reaction: Link Clicked
      3. Link Type: Any Link (if you want to track a specific link, you may select Specific Link here. It is also possible to select a link category).
      4. Message Selection: Prepared Message
      5. Email Message: find and select the required message in the search bar.
    2. Openers - this path is for those contacts that opened the email, but did not click on any link.
      1. Specify the date and time.
      2. Reaction: Email Message Opened
      3. Message Selection: Prepared Message
      4. Email Message: find and select the required message in the search bar.
      5. Click Apply.
  6. Add next step to the Clickers path and select the job Send Direct Mail.

    1. Specify the date and time when the Whiteboard will trigger the direct message sendout.
    2. Select the direct mail message you prepared before and click Apply.
  7. Add next step to the Openers path and select the job Send Email Message.
    1. Specify the date and time when the Whiteboard will trigger the direct message sendout.
    2. Select the email message you prepared before and click Apply.
  8. You can now validate and schedule the Whiteboard. Done!

Further Information