Email marketing is a powerful tool that has withstood the test of time. Every WhirLocal account comes with a default campaign called Review Invites, which invites your clients to leave a review. You can add additional campaigns according to your account status.
Default Campaign – Review Invites
Your Review Invite campaign is designed to work straight out of the box – meaning if you don’t want to customize it, it still works great!
Our professional experience tell us that a 3 email campaign, sent over the course of 7 days, proves effective for gathering new reviews.
Our recommendation is that you look over your Review Invite campaign emails, and edit/adjust as needed.
Add a New Campaign
Add a new campaign by clicking the blue button to the right of the screen. It will prompt you to select a name and description for your campaign.
You should try to be a descriptive as possible. The names and descriptions will not be seen by your customers at any time. Make sure to click ‘Add Campaign’.
Add an Email
Once you have added a campaign, you will need to add an email. You can do so by clicking the ‘Add Email’.
Elements of a Campaign
Each element of the campaign is an integral part to its success.
Start Triggers
Start triggers is what triggers to the email to begin to send. In the case of the default Review Invites campaign, the trigger is ‘Added in Contacts’ and the fact that you indicated to send the campaign. There are also other triggers you can select.
Select the trigger that makes the most sense for your email campaign goals. It might be helpful to look at your trigger options, if you aren’t sure what type of email campaign you want to put together.
Stop Triggers
A stop trigger is an action the contact takes that could stop the campaign.
Not all campaigns will need start or stop triggers, but they are helpful to increase the ‘automation’ of your marketing.
Delay
The ‘Delay’ drop down refers to how long it will be (in days) until the contact receives the first email and any subsequent emails in the series. The soonest you can pick is ‘ASAP’ and the latest you can pick is 90 days. For each subsequent email in the series, you must pick a later date the previous emails.
Title
Exactly what it says, you email title will be the email subject line. While there are tons of strategies to get more people to open your emails, we have one very strong suggestion. Don’t be spammy or try to trick people. Again, keep it simple, interesting, and relevant, and your contacts will keep listening to you. Spam or trick them… and they will unsubscribe in a hot New York minute.
Editing an Email
To edit an email, select the pencil icon on the right.
That will open up the editing box. In this box you can edit pretty much anything including the title, delay, the copy, and we’ve provided merge tags for your convenience.
Make sure you hit ‘Save’ or ‘Save & Exit’ every time!
Automatic Content
We automatically take care of adding important company information and required CAN-SPAM information in the footer of the email. For example, every email includes an unsubscribe link, which is required and allows the contact to unsubscribe from the campaign.
We also append a small marketing message in the footer. The WhirLocal automatically includes your affiliate referral link. If someone clicks on the link and signs up for a paid account on our platform, you will get affiliate credit. Learn more about our affiliate program.
Copy or Delete An Email
Beside the pencil icon, is the copy icon (the two squares) and delete icon (the trash can). Use with care, since these actions cannot be undone.
Exiting a Campaign
Prospects can opt out of the campaign at any time using the Unsubscribe button. Or, you can remove them manually in their contact record.
Campaign Example
If a prospect fills out your contact form, you could create a campaign that automates your followup. For example, you could do the following:
- Send an immediate (within 15 minutes) email response thanking them for filling out the form. Perhaps you’re including a free resource when they sign up, so you could include that here.
- Send a follow-up resource in 2 days, providing additional value for your prospect.
- Send a call to action on the 3rd day, inviting them to do business with you.