If you are just getting started with Marketing Campaigns in Business Center, our recommended place to start is our Learning Module on Email/SMS Campaigns.
This course gives all of the steps needed to get started sending successful campaigns.
Welcome to Automated Campaigns with Business Center! Email marketing is still by far & wide one of the most effective ways to reach your customers - but it's changing every day, and we are here to help you keep up.
Automatic Campaigns are personalized, timely, and extremely relevant to your clients. As opposed to a traditional email marketing campaign, like a newsletter or a one-off message, automated campaigns are automatically sent to the user based on an action or trigger.
The beauty behind an automated campaign is that once you set it up in Business Center, the email will continue to be sent out on your behalf until you stop it - and you never have to lift a finger! Let Business Center do all the work behind the scenes for you, keeping your business in the minds of your customers and generating additional revenue!
How to Create an Automated Campaign
Helpful Tips on Automated Campaigns
How to Create an Automated Campaign
Start by going to Marketing>Automated Campaigns:
Select from one of the pre-loaded templates, or choose New Automated Campaign at the top of the page.
Upon selecting Add Automated Campaign (if this is an available option based on your Business Center package), the following screen will appear:
Select from one of our Templates or Create Your Own
You will have the option to either select a template from our library or create your own if your package allows. Selecting Preview will show you how the campaign will look during editing.
To create your own automated campaign from scratch, you will need to make the following selections:
- Choose a trigger for your campaign. These are the actions a customer can take that will prompt Business Center to send them the campaign
- Note that additional options may appear based on the trigger selected
- Send the campaign by Email or SMS. Note that when SMS is selected, email can be used as a backup if the customer's contact number is missing or invalid
- Choose the time of day the campaign will be sent. At this time every day, the campaign will be sent to all customers who first met the criteria in the last 24 hours based on the trigger chosen
- Filter your recipients by Tag. Note that if this option is not changed, all customers who meet the criteria of the trigger will receive the campaign.
If everything looks accurate, hit Continue to editor, and you'll be brought to the editing screen for your new automated campaign:
Clicking anywhere on the text fields inside the campaign template will allow the editing screen to open up:
Set Campaign Settings
To adjust the trigger for your campaign, click on Edit Automation
This will bring up the screen to edit the settings for your campaign trigger and timing.
Choosing a Delivery Time
Choose a time when you know your customers may be reading their email. Studies show that the best open-rates for email campaigns are during the day. Our High-Thryv recommendation is to send these types of automated campaigns between 8-10am.
Recipient Settings
You will have two options here. You can either choose "All Matching Clients" or the "Filtered" method.
Choosing all matching clients means that it will pull from your entire client list.
Below, we will show you how to use the filter option:
Delivery Method
Your delivery method choices are either email or SMS messaging.
If you choose Text Message, you will see the following appear. Please note that for SMS messages, you are limited to 160 characters.You will only be able to send the text message to customers who have already opted in for promotions.
Once you are finished updating your automated campaign settings, you are ready to set the campaign to "Active". Click on the toggle in the right corner near the editing window for the campaign:
Available Automated Campaign Types
Engaging with Leads
Engaging with New Customers
Reconnect with Your Inactive Customers
Review Generation/Review Request
Engage on a Specific Date
Send Birthday Cards
Send Birthday Cards to Your Clients
For this automated campaign option, you will need to ensure that your client card is updated to reflect either a special date or a birthday. Note that any date field in the client card can be used for this type of campaign, it doesn't necessarily have to be a birthday.
Once you have your client card ready to gather these important dates from your customers, you are ready to create an automated campaign for either their birthday or other special day, like a yearly inspection date or annual service reminder.
For both choices, you will be prompted to select either a birthday or other date from a drop-down menu. If you do not have a drop-down menu, you must configure your client card settings first. For our example, we are selecting "Birthday".
You'll be taken to the edit campaign screen, where you can customize your campaign however you like.
Birthday Email Campaign Best Practices
More than 55% of birthday emails are sent on the exact birthdate, with 38% of birthday emails being sent about a month prior to the birthday. Our High-Thryv recommendation is to send the birthday campaign at the start of your customer's birthday month, giving them plenty of opportunity to take action on your offer. (Source: Experian)
Need ideas for what to send? Here are some that we came up with:
- A Free Gift
- Free Shipping or Discount
- A Coupon
- Mystery Savings (bring in the coupon for 10, 20 or 30% off)
You're now ready to activate your campaign, so click that toggle to "Active!"
Follow-Up with New Leads/Reconnect with Your Inactive Customers
Business Center can help you welcome your new customers as well as get you reacquainted with customers who haven't done business with you in a while. Clicking on one of the buttons shown above will open up your editing screen to get you started with these choices.
For New Lead is Generated campaigns, your recipient settings are defaulted to send to all your incoming leads. For example, when a new lead appears in Business Center, this would trigger an email being sent directly to them, based on your delivery time setting and delivery method, welcoming them to your business. You can still customize your settings however works for you.
For Reconnect with your Inactive Customers campaigns, you'll see that there is both a trigger and a timing setting:
Your Trigger and Timing Settings are defaulted to send to any client who has not interacted with your business in the last 90 days. An interaction in this case is defined as scheduling or attending an appointment or group event, a payment, sending a message to the business or sharing a document. You can customize this date to any number, as well as the delivery time.
The Recipient Settings will default to "All Inactive Clients" which is based off of the Trigger and Timing Settings you choose first. You can also customize this to clients you have tagged in a certain way.
Once again, your delivery method is either via email campaign or text message.
It is important to note that if you are targeting customers that are inactive after 90 days, the automated campaign will be sent only once until they become active again. If 90 more days pass again without any activity, the email will be sent again.
Review Generation
Did you know that over 90% of consumers read reviews to help them make a decision as to whether they will visit a business? With the Review Request Automated Campaigns, we can help drive more reviews to your business without any manual labor!
You will see the options for Review Request:
The Review Generation Campaign will automatically be sent to any of your customers when they have a status change from "Lead" to "Customer". All content in the campaign, as well as Trigger/Timing Settings are editable - in the same way as we describe above.
When clients leave a review, you'll see it come up under Reputation>Reviews.
From there, you'll be able to respond to your reviews using our Review Response Management tool. You can read more about that here.
Helpful Tips on Automated Campaigns
Why Are Welcome Campaigns Important?
Sending a Welcome Email to your customers as soon as they sign up for your client list provides them with an impactful client experience, helping them think of you in a positive way. It helps your customers reaffirm they made the right decision choosing you, helps them understand what they can expect from you going forward, and helps you ensure that future emails will have a higher chance of being read.
To close this up, we want to offer you some final High-Thryv recommendations on Welcome Campaigns:
- Remember to create a unique Subject Line. Entice your customers to open their email with something that grabs their attention!
- Help your clients feel like they are part of your business - you are part of their community!
- Let your clients know that their email is safe with you.
- Remember - Right message to the right client at the right time.
Automated Campaigns FAQ
What is an Automated Campaign?
Automatic Campaigns are personalized, timely, and extremely relevant to your clients. As opposed to a traditional email marketing campaign, like a newsletter or a one-off message, automated campaigns are automatically sent to the user based on an action or trigger.
What package level of Thryv do I need to use Automated Campaigns?
Creating your own personalized Automated Campaigns requires a Thryv Unlimited Package. Thryv Plus and Professional customers will have templates housed inside their Thryv, which will be editable, but you will be unable to create additional automated campaigns.
What kinds of Automated Campaigns can I send?
- Engaging with Leads
- Engaging with New Customers
- Reconnect with Your Inactive Customers
- Engage with clients on a specific Date, i.e. birthday or any custom date field in the client card.
- Note that this date will repeat on the exact same date every year. Also note that this date does not correspond with your Calendar. In other words, appointments on the calendar can't be used to trigger automated campaigns based on date.
- Review Generation/Review Request
How many times will an automated campaign be sent to inactive customers?
The Automated Campaign will be sent once until the customer becomes active again. For example, if an automated campaign is set to send after 90 days of inactivity, then the customer would receive the campaign 90 days after their last interaction. If they interact again, then another 90 day period would start, at the end of which they would receive the campaign again. However if they do not interact, they would not receive the campaign a second time.
How many times will an automated campaign be sent for a customer that has a status change? (VIP, Lead, Customer)
The Automated Campaign will only be sent once. If the customer changes their status, for example, from a Lead to a VIP, the email will not be sent again to the same customer.
Want to see what others are doing with Automated Campaigns? Chat with us in our Community! Still not finding what you're looking for? You are also able to log in with your Thryv credentials and leave a comment below!
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