The mailing options allow you to manage recipients, send communications through third-party providers, and track mailing results.
Create an Email
Click CRM, then click Mailing.
Click New and select New Email Mailing.
The following fields will either be populated or need to be completed before the record will save:
Title: The name of the mailing being created.
Mailing ID: The ID can be changed to something unique to the mailing.
Method: This will be set to 'Email' but can be changed if necessary.
Source: This is greyed out, as this field determines the form where the data is merged from.
The following fields are optional and can always be completed at a later point if necessary:
Exclude Ref: Excludes contacts included in a previous mailing by selecting the ID.
Preference: Specifies the type of mailing being sent e.g. Newsletter.
Mailing is for DM: Specifies that the mailing is for direct marketing.
Click Save to start the mailing.
Create List
The mailing is now created and will be at the 'Create List' stage. The various workflow stages are displayed at the top of the mailing.
On the Create List workflow stage, the following workflow options can be used:
Load: The appropriate method for loading the contacts can be selected.
Note: If choosing to load a group, make sure the list is created from either the Contact or Groups form.Exclude: Enables the exclusion of contacts from the mailing.
Too Many Mailings Protected: Enables a limit to be set of the number of mailings in which a person or organisation receives.
Reload: This removes any contacts that have been previously loaded in to the mailing and will reload the selections again.
Set Preferences: Enables the mailing preferences to be set for the contacts loaded in the mailing.
Recipients
When the contacts are loaded, the results of how many people have a 'do not contact' preference or have missing contact information will be displayed in the Summary area of the Details tab.
To view information about contacts included in a mailing, on the toolbar, click Recipients. This will open the Recipients form where the ‘Do Not Contact’ status for the current mailing can be overridden. The address details can also be amended if necessary along with the Preferred Method for the mailing.
When the mailing list is created, click the Configure workflow stage.
Configure
There are various options that will now appear on the toolbar to help put together the mailing:
Fragment: Allows the mailings to be sorted into groups.
Dedupe: Enables the de-duplication check on households, addresses and mobile numbers. Records can be merged together if necessary.
Mail Blocks: This action will un-tick the Do Not Mail field for all individuals in the mailing to enable them to be mailed.
If the mailing needs dividing, using the Segments allows this.
When the mailing list has been configured, click the Send workflow stage at the top of the form.
Send
The steps below are for sending emails with Microsoft Outlook. To find out how to use the third party functionality, please refer to the third party mailing knowledge article.
📌 Note: If Microsoft Outlook is being used to open the mailing, the correct Microsoft Addins will need to be installed. This is so the mailing can be logged back into Access thankQ CRM.
When using the Log button for the first time, the user will be required to enter their thankQ credentials.
Click the Create Email drop-down and select Send with Outlook.
Use the check boxes to select the mailing methods to merge.
Click Select.
This will create an Outlook email with the recipients’ email addresses populated in the Bcc… field.
Enter any text to the body of the email and attach any documents required.
Click the thankQ tab in Outlook to log the email back to the contacts in the system.
Click Log.
If additional email addresses are added in Outlook, the option to add the contacts into Access thankQ 10 CRM will be given. A record of the email will then be stored on the Comms tab of the Contact form against all the contacts in the mailing.
To check that the contacts have received the letter, on the Mailings form, click Recipients. Contacts will be marked as ‘Mailing Sent’.
The Details tab on the Mailings form will display the total number of people that were sent the email. The mailing summary can also be viewed from the Communication Method Summary area of the tab.
Additional Options at the Send Stage
The following additional workflow options will be available on the toolbar:
Export: Allows the email to be exported out in to CSV, PDF or Excel format.
Reset: The options available on the drop-down are:
Reset Sent Contacts: This will clear the Mailing Sent check box for all recipients of the mailing, enabling them to be merged again.
Reset Templates: This will reset all the templates that have previously been allocated for the mailing and enable new templates to be selected.
Create Source: Allows a Source Code for the mailing to be created. For example, a mailing might be sending out a specific appeal or campaign for which donations are expected to be received. Setting up a Source Code will enable the payments to be associated with the mailing.
When the mailing is sent out, click the Complete workflow stage to finish the mailing process.
Complete
Once the Complete workflow stage is selected, there are no more further options, this is the end of the mailing process. Any stage can be selected to go back through the the workflow at the top of the form if any details need amending.