Direct Mail Manager

This article was developed to describe how to use the Direct Mail Manager within the Forth CRM system. It is organized into the following sections:

• Overview
• Setting up the Direct Mail Manager
  • 1. Configuring the Upload File
  • 2. Navigate to the Direct Mail Manager Page
  • 3. Upload the CSV File
  • 4. Field Mapping
  • 5. Settings
  • 6. Deleting Mail Records
• Using the Direct Mail Manager
  • 1. Searching Mail Records
  • 2. Converting the Mail Record to a Contact
  • 3. Converted Contact

Overview

The Direct Mail Manager operates as a database that holds mail records. Since direct mail typically involves contacting many potential leads with a low return rate, you would not want to create contacts for every mailer you send out. Instead, you can hold records in a separate database and convert the records into a contact on demand.

If you do not find the Search Mail Records link available on the Contacts tab of your CRM, please contact Support@setforth.com to activate the Direct Mail Manager. There is no additional fee for this functionality.

Setting up the Direct Mail Manager

1. Configuring the Upload File

Before starting the upload process, review the file you will upload into the Direct Mail Manager. Your Excel spreadsheet must be in the CSV format (Comma Delimited), or the system cannot read the data. A CSV file is plain text or an "unformatted" Excel spreadsheet from which the CRM can pull data records.

Next, make sure the file has a header row. The following are some requirements and best practices for the header row:

• No Duplicate Headers: Make sure each column in the header row is unique. Duplicate headers can cause the loss of field data or even a fatal error during the upload.
• No Special Characters: Examples include: ! @ # $ % ^ & *
• Headers Should Be Lowercase.
• Make sure headers are descriptive and properly represent the data in their respective column. This will make the upload mapping process easier.

If you plan on doing multiple Direct Mail campaigns, we suggest you ask your marketing company to supply you with your spreadsheet file to keep each successive file in the same format. This will help prevent problems uploading new files in the future and the additional inconvenience of having to re-map fields.

Example CSV file ready to be uploaded:

2. Navigate to the Direct Mail Manager Page

Go to the Contacts tab, and then click "Search Mail Records," as shown in the image below:

3. Upload the CSV File

On this page, you can search for records, select a Campaign, and click the "Choose File" button to find the preferred CSV file stored on your computer. Once you have completed this, click the Upload button.

**Note: The time it takes for the system to complete the upload depends on the number of records you upload.

IMPORTANT: If there is a need to delete duplicate contacts, complete the following steps before Step Number 4 below:

• Export the mailing list/database,
• Delete the mailing list/database from the CRM,
• Remove the duplicates from the CSV file and re-save it,
• and then import the updated CSV file with the duplicate records removed.

4. Field Mapping

Once the upload is finished, you will see the current number of records in the database on the Mail Data page (see sample below). The next step is to map the column headers from your CSV file to the data fields in your CRM.

Click Field Mappings.

Once you click the Field Mappings button, a layover window will appear. On the left are the header columns imported from the CSV file. To the right will be a drop-down menu with a list of the CRM Standard and Custom fields to map the data to.

**Note: You must select a campaign to complete uploading leads.

Below is an example of what your Field Mappings should look like:

**Note: We mapped the "mid" to the Standard field "External ID". External ID is a system field meant to be used to store a third party's ID. This is useful so that when searching converted mail contacts in the CRM, you can search for contacts by their reference ID.

Once you are finished mapping each field, click Save.

5. Settings

Click Settings to open the settings layover window.

In the Settings layover window, you will find options for how the records will be converted to contacts.

• File Type: Type of contact being imported from the direct mail manager.
• Stage / Status: Workflow Status that the contact will be placed in once converted.
• Data Source: You can assign a Data Source from which the contacts will appear to be created.
• Primary Search Field: Select the field you will primarily use to search mail records. This helps the system provide more accurate search results.
• Import Destination: Once a contact is converted, select the destination page to which you would like to be taken.

After making your selections, click the Save button.

6. Deleting Mail Records

Click the Export & Purge button as shown below.

NOTE: To purge only a select set of mail records, you need to purge the entire database, edit the .csv file, and then re-upload the records you want to keep.

Using the Direct Mail Manager

1. Searching Mail Records

Now that we have imported the CSV file, mapped the fields, and configured the settings, we can search the mail records and convert them into contacts.

Navigate to the Contacts tab, then click Search Mail Records.

The header column "mid" is the default search field, as we designated in the settings. The other header columns are listed as optional fields for searching. We will use the "mid" field as our search parameter to demonstrate the search functions.

Start by entering the "mid" into the "Search Records" field on the left side of the page that corresponds to the stored mail record that you are trying to locate.

Once the records have been searched, the available options will be displayed below the search bar

Click on any of the data fields to proceed to the next step, where we can convert the record into a contact.

2. Converting the Mail Record to a Contact

Once you have chosen the mail record you would like to convert to a contact, the system will display the record's information, which will be imported into the Contact file.

When ready, click Convert To A New Lead.

3. Converted Contact

As you see from the record we converted, the name and email address have been imported into the new Contact file.

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