Marketing – Creating New Campaigns

In the BNTouch CRM, marketing communication is broken down into ‘campaigns’ for different purposes. Each campaign is made up of a series of ‘steps’, each representing an action of some kind that is taken. These steps can include emails being sent, CRM tasks being assigned, reminders being made, phone calls and text messages being issued, and more.

This article explains how to add, edit, copy, and otherwise configure steps in your marketing campaigns. You will also need to add triggers to a campaign before you use it to automate your marketing. When finished with this training, BNTouch recommends that you watch the “Step 3: Campaign Triggers” video for a complete understanding of how campaigns work.

In the Marketing Tab of your CRM, open a campaign by clicking on the blue Campaign Name. By default, the first screen that will display is a list of the steps in that campaign. You can always return to this list by clicking the “Steps” sub-tab while working in this campaign.

All of the steps in the campaign will be separated into two lists: “Steps by Interval” and “Steps by Exact Date”.

“Steps Based On Interval” will activate based upon a period of time after a specified “trigger” takes place. This type of step can be used to send out an automated email one, three, and five days after a lead is generated, or to send a reminder to yourself in-system to call a lead after a certain period. The “Interval” column will show a number representing how many days after the triggering event the step will activate. A value of “1” in this column means that the step will trigger as soon as a record is added to the campaign.

“Steps Based On Exact Date” will activate on the specified date, regardless of the duration of the campaign. This type of step can be used to send campaigns for holidays, birthdays, or other events that take place at the same time each year.

The first several columns of the step lists will have letter icons representing the configuration of each step.

The first will show a “T” icon if the step has been set up from a basic template other than your Default Template. The second will show an “A” icon if the step will be sent automatically upon the interval or date. If no icon is present here, the step will instead go to your “Pending Campaigns” list until you approve it to be sent. The third will show various icons representing the target recipients, including borrowers, partners, staff members, or yourself, as indicated by the letter. The fourth will show whether the step has multi-language support and will automatically send the appropriate version of the step based on the recipient’s ‘Preferred Language’.

Next, the “Step Name” represents the subject of the marketing communication; you can click this link to see a preview of the step. The “Method” column will show what media will be used for the step, including email, SMS message, CRM task, and the like.

The next columns will show either the interval (in days) from when the campaign was started or the exact date on which the step will be sent. For some methods, including mailed postcards or automated phone calls, a “Cost” will be listed for each iteration of that step that is sent from your account.  Additionally, you can see when the step was added to the campaign and when it was last edited and updated.

The “Actions” icon in the final column can be used to interact with an individual step. From this menu, you can edit the contents of a step, delete the step from the campaign, send a text copy of the step to a specified email address, or see a log of any changes to the step.

To create a new step for a campaign from scratch, click the “Add New Step” button at the top of the page. Here, you will be able to select the method of delivery for the step. Once selected, you will be able to edit the contents of the step.

First, select the recipient from the “Step For” drop-down menu. For some options, additional menus will let you further refine the recipient, as with Loan Participants and other CRM users in your account. Next, set the “Step Name”; this will be the subject in the case of emails, SMS messages, and the like. You can include emoji in this field using the icon to the right.

If you haven’t set the campaign to use your Default Template, you can choose individual templates for each step using the drop-down menu here.

If you want a copy of this step to be sent to another recipient, click “Add CC” or “Add BCC” below. You can then select another recipient as before.

In the “Custom Text” field, enter what you want the content of this step to be. This will be the body of an email, the message of an SMS text, or the description of a reminder. You can use the text editor to customize the appearance of this text. The buttons above the text box can be used to organize the message using lists or tables, add images or videos, link to external websites, attach files, enter HTML tags, and more.

Of specific note, you can use “Meta-tags” in this field to automatically pull relevant data fields from records and information in your CRM. For more information about Meta-tags and how to use them in your marketing, please watch our “Using Meta-Tags in Marketing Campaigns” training video in this series.

Below the text editor, you will see an estimated cost for the step if you have chosen a method with a per-submission cost. You can also choose the delivery method here from the drop-down menu.

If you need to attach a document to this step, you can do so either by uploading a file from your computer or choosing from your CRM document library.

The “Auto-send” checkbox is very important for your marketing automation; this step will only be sent automatically upon its interval or date if this box is checked. If it is not checked, you will need to manually confirm its submission from your Pending Campaigns list in the Dashboard tab.

If this step needs to be sent repeatedly, as in the case of a newsletter, you can check the “Recurrent Step” box.

Lastly, enter the day interval or the exact date for the step in the fields to the right. Additionally, choose a time of day for the marketing step to be sent for either the interval or exact date option.

When you are ready to save your work and complete the step, click the “Add Step” button below.

You will be returned to the Step List for the campaign. If you need to make any further changes to the step, you can do so by clicking the “Actions” menu to the right and choosing “Edit”. This will open the same text editor as when adding the step, and any changes you make will only be saved when you click “Update Letter” on that screen.

You can also copy steps from this step list by checking boxes to the right and clicking the “Copy Step” button above the list. This can be helpful if you need to create multiple, similar steps for a campaign, as you can create these copies and then edit each without having to re-create them in full. Remember to rename these copied steps, as they will retain the original Step Name with a “Copy of” addition by default.

You’ve now learned how to add steps to a campaign. Next, you’ll need to add Triggers to it that will add relevant clients and partners automatically. The next video in this series, “Creating New Campaigns - Triggers (Step 3)”, covers this process in detail. BNTouch recommends watching the entire “Creating New Campaigns” series in order to fully understand the marketing process in your CRM.