This tutorial series will focus on the automation process for having your emails and text go out automatically based on how we setup the automation rule. There is also a way to setup automation for your lead captures as well so be sure to look over the entire series
(Note: you will need to have MarketSharp Email & Text in order to perform an automation. This only available for users with the Ultimate Package. If you'd like to upgrade to this package, please speak with your account manager).
The Automation Formula is a 3 step process as follows:
- Create a template
- Create an activity process
- Attach the process to an automation rule
This tutorial will focus on creating a template for email and text. If you are comfortable with templates already, then move on to step two here.
To get access to your templates. you will need to go to the admin page. If you take your mouse and hover over your name in the top right of the screen, you will see pop-up appear and among the items here, there will be an Admin link.
On the Admin Page, locate the header of Email Setup and click the link for MarketSharp Email Templates.
On the email template maintenance page, click Add Template in the top left of the page.
A new window will pop-up for you to Add/Edit Email Template. There will be a couple of * that indicate mandatory information. The first mandatory fields are the name and the subject of the email. Once you create the name and subject, move down to the blank white box in this window, this is the email body section. This section will contact the details you wish to convey to your client and the reason behind your contact.
If you notice in my example email, it looks really weird with the spacing, but I did this intentionally because I want to be able to insert merge fields into the email template to fill in information from a contacts record without me having to always type the information out manually, which can be inefficient over time.
To insert a merge field, pick a section in your email and left click to move the cursor there, above the email body is a drop down that says (Merge Field).
I want to be able to address the email recipient by their first name so I will select Contact.First_Name from the merge field list.
Now whichever contact I send this email to, it will always replace that merge field with the data entered on the contact record (Example: Hello Will, )
Moving on to the next blank in our template, I want to include the company name and in the next blank I want to include the company phone number. I also want to include the name of the company owner to give the email something more personable.
As you can see above, now my email looks a lot better now that I have added my merge fields. You can make your emails say anything you wish, so get creative and have fun with it, test the merge fields and practice by creating yourself as a contact and email yourself these templates so you know how they will look.
Text Templates work in a very similar fashion, however the way you add the merge fields functions a bit differently.
Moving back to the Admin Page, look for the header of Text Message Setup and click the link for MarketSharp Text Message Templates.
Here you will see Marketsharp has some default templates in here by default and you may notice there is no add button in this section. To create a new template, you only have to start with the boxes at the top of this maintenance page.
To begin, lets give our template a name. I will use Template Example.
Next I want to select the contact type for who I wish to have receive this text. You have two options Contact or Employee. The nature of your message will determine which of these types you need to send it to. For this example we will choose Contact.
Now we will begin to work on the body of the text in the Message box. Notice that to the right of the message is out Insert Merge Fields box, that works just like our email templates. The difference here is that for text templates, the merge field will always appear as the last thing you do.
For example, let me give you the text message body.
Hello, Thanks for your interest in we will take a look over your information and reach out to you soon to schedule your FREE estimate!
In the email template section we were able to add in the merge field wherever the cursor of the mouse was. Let me show you what happens if we were to do that with text.
Notice that even though I inserted the cursor behind the greeting, it still places the merge field at the end of the text body. To solve this, you have to create your text templates differently. Rather than inserting the whole message. Add in the message in sections. Type or copy in your text if you keyed it in something else like Notepad and when you know a merge field is coming up, stop adding text and insert the merge field.
Take a look at the following Illustrations:
To add this template in, click the save link on the right side of the message box.
Notice as well under the Estimated Segments column there is a variety of different number on the text lines, indicating how many text segments this one message will use. If you hover your mouse over the question mark for the tool tip it will explain.
Each company is given a standard amount of 1000 text segments per month. If each of your text messages you send is say 5 segments, then you would only be able to send 200 text messages before you went over this allowance and you would then have to pay overage charges. (Currently this is 5 cents per message). Those cost can add up and the best way to get more text in for the month is to keep your text short and to the point. If you wish to increase your text segments, they will cost $50 per 1000 segments and you can contact MarketSharp Support at 1-800-596-4368 to add more segments if you so choose.