Sending Email and Fax Messages To Your Users from the Contact Center

Why is it used?

Do you have (or want) an electronic newsletter that you send out periodically?  Are you looking for ways to keep in touch with your membership, or need to send a quick message with usernames and passwords to everyone?  Maybe you have targeted communications based on member interests or location, or maybe you just want to say hello - the Contact Center is used in a variety of ways for one main purpose - communication.  Use it any time you have information to share with your users - from a quick and simple "hi, thanks for being a member!" to fantastic looking e-newsletters packed with images, links and breaking news.  Save time with powerful functionality such as "merge data" - compose a single message and insert attribute/database field information which will populate automatically upon sending, no matter how many users you're sending it to!  Like to get things done in advance?  Compose a message today and schedule it to send on any future date at any time.  Composing a message in the Contact Center is as easy as it is in your regular, day-to-day email program (Outlook, Gmail, etc.).  With built-in and easy to use reporting features, you'll always have useful information available for each message sent.

What is it?

The Contact Center is MemberClicks' built-in communication tool that allows you to send both emails and faxes to the users/profiles in your database.  You can send messages to 1 user at a time, all users at once, or any number in between using your database's search functions.  Choose from HTML-based or plain text (or both) email formats, add attachments, and insert attribute/database field information among other features.

Benefits

• Keep in touch with and engage your members
• Personalize your messages - use merge data to insert any attribute/database field information
• Easy to use reporting - see who a message was sent to, number of opens, bounces, unsubscribes, and how many times a link was clicked

How to send a message

You can send a message using the Contact Center by following the steps below:

1. The first step is to decide who you'd like to send the message to - 1 user, all users or any number in between
   • All users - click "active profiles" on the right-hand side of your Admin Home page
   • Single database group - click the appropriate group name on the right-hand side of your Admin Home page
   • Specific users - use the Simple or Advanced Search pages to find users based on any criteria
2. Once you have profiles pulled up, click the "Contact" button towards the top-right which will take you to the Contact Center
   
   
3. The top section has 3 required fields: reply name, reply email address and subject.  You are also able to select a message format (HTML, plain text or both), and/or retrieve a saved message to use as a template.
   Quick tip: save any frequently used messages to save time and prevent having to recreate them (great for newsletter templates!)
   
   
4. The next section is where the body of your email will go.
   • To insert attribute/database field information, use the "merge data" button (circled in the image below).  Any attributes merged in will appear as placeholders with "##" before and after. Click here for information on best practices for emailing out Usernames and Passwords.
   • To insert images, click the "Image" button found directly below the editor window.
   • To insert links to anything within your MemberClicks site (pages, forms, files, etc.), click the "Site Links" button found directly below the editor window.
   
5. You can then choose to include a "Forward to a Friend" link, add an attachment, and/or schedule the message to send at a later time
   
   
6. Once your message is complete, click "Continue" at the bottom of the page. This will take you to a preview of the message – Note: you will still see merge data as placeholders in the preview, this is fine. Merge data items will auto-populate with the appropriate information once you send the message.
   • If you need to go back and make changes, click the "Return to Contact Center" button at the top-right.
   • If you want to save the message to use as a template later on, or if you don’t plan on sending it right away, click the "Save this message" button at the top-right. You’ll be able to pull up any saved messages the next time you go to the Contact Center using the "Use a saved message or event invitation" drop down menu that appears directly above the HTML editor window
   • When finished click the "Send" button to begin sending the message to the selected profiles
   
   

Notes

The Contact Center will strip out embedded code, as used for Vimeo or YouTube videos. Instead of embedding that type of content, simply insert a link to it.