Modules – BNTouch Mail

BNTouch Mail is an add-on module for your BNTouch CRM that allows you to send fully colored, branded postcards as part of your marketing campaigns. These cards can be created and customized with your own artwork or selected from our expansive library of pre-made designs. Sending postcards doesn’t have to interrupt your normal workflow, either; you can send these cards as part of your automated marketing campaigns and even view a detailed history of each card sent to your clients and partners.

If you are an administrator for your account, you can enable BNTouch Mail from the user menu in the upper-right corner of your CRM. Open the “Modules” section, then scroll to the “BNTouch Mail” panel. You can hover over this panel for pricing details and support materials, and you can enable the feature by clicking the “Activate Module” button. Please note that this add-on module requires a charge added to your account. As you send postcards via BNTouch Mail, the cost of each card will be debited from that balance. You can then add to your available funds later as you use this feature.

After BNTouch Mail is activated, you will see extra option in your Marketing Tab titled “Mail”. When you click this sub-tab, you’ll see a long list of images available for use in your postcard marketing. This library of high-resolution images is available for you to use when you send postcards to your clients and partners.

You can filter the list using the drop-down menus at the top of the page. The “Events” menus lets you find postcards that are perfect for a specific holiday, mortgage milestone, personal event, or birthday. “Size” lets you see just 4”x6” or 6”x9” cards. The last menu, “Group”, can be used to sort postcards into your own organizational structure. You can add groups for your various users, particular events, or anything else that meets your business needs using the “Manage Groups” link to the right. You can add groups here, see how many postcards are sorted into each, and delete any that you don’t use anymore.

When you hover over a postcard image in the library, you can click “Send” to create a one-off postcard and send it to a client or partner immediately. You can enter a personalized message in the “Print Text” box, then choose a recipient from your CRM databases. You can click the “Preview” button at any time to see what the printed postcard will look like with whatever you have entered so far. When ready to mail your card, click the “Send” button. If you wish to include any co-branding for your mortgage partners, you can instead click “Send Co-branded”.

You will see a confirmation message with the recipient’s address listed. If you try to send to someone without a full mailing address, you will be alerted to update that first. If the address is verified, you will be able to confirm the sending of the new postcard.

From the Mail Postcards list, you can also upload your own images to make postcards with any artwork you own. At the bottom of the list, just click the “Add Artwork” button. You can then find an image from your computer to use for the postcard. Please make sure that your artwork is a high-resolution picture; you will be alerted if the image is too small so that you can avoid stretched or blurry images. You can then enter a title for the card, choose a background color and size, and assign it to any groups in your list. When you click “Upload”, the picture will be added to your postcard library.

For customized artwork postcards, you will have additional options available when you hover over the picture in the Mail Library. Clicking the “Folder” icon lets you add it to any custom groups, and the “Trash” icon lets you remove images you no longer need.

Lastly, you can search for the perfect postcard image using the text box in the upper-right corner of the library. This will look for text in the “Title” field of each image in this list.

You can see a full log of all postcards sent out from your account by clicking the “View Mailing History” button. You’ll be able to view which user in your office sent the card, what client or partner is the recipient, the title of the card, the cost for that mailing, and the current mailing status of the postcard. This log can also be filtered by CRM user via the drop-down menu above the list.

The “View” link to the right can be used to see exactly how the card appears as a .PDF file. When a postcard is queued to be sent, you will have a few hours to review and cancel it here before the card is mailed. Once a card’s status updates to “Processed for Delivery”, the cancel option will not be available.

At the top of the Mail Postcards Library, you’ll also see your current monthly balance for postcards mailed that month. To see a detailed list of mailed cards and the costs associated with each, just click the “Billing Report” button to the right. Here, you can set a date range and click “Generate Report” to see how many postcards were sent during that period by each user in your office, how many of each size, and the total cost of mailed cards.

The best part of the BNTouch Mail module is the ability to send postcards as part of your current marketing campaigns. When you create or edit a step in one of your campaigns in the Marketing Tab, you will be able to set the “Step Method” to “Mail”. You can then choose from the card artworks available in your Mail Library from a drop-down list. You can preview any of these cards using the link to the right.

Steps sent this way can include meta-tags just like emails and SMS messages, allowing you to send personalized messages with details from each client’s record in your CRM.

After you send a post card from the Mail Library or via an executed step in a campaign, your postcard will be generated and printed within 48 hours. Once printed, they will be sent to the noted recipient within 2-5 business days. This timeframe does depend on the location of the recipient, as the postcards are sent out from Florida.