STX Beacon User Guide Marke4ng

STX Beacon User Guide Marke4ng

3 Promotions 4 Marketing Email 9 Marketing Sets: Email Output 9 Marketing Reports 10 Email Activity 11 Marketing: Avoiding SPAM Filters Table of Contents 2

Main Menu: Marketing Marketing your business is fun and Beacon gives you a variety of tools designed to help unleash a winning message to your target audience. In this section we will be covering Promotions, Marketing Sets, tracking Email Activity, and how to create an effective Marketing Email. You must be subscribing to Beacon Premium service in order to use Marketing Email, Marketing Sets, Marketing Reports, and Email Activity. Note: Rewards setup and tracking is detailed in a separate guide. If you would like a copy, please contact the Solutions department. Marketing: Promotions Create promotions for services and/or products to be available for selection on tickets. Discount Amount - monetary value of discount. Discount Percentage - percentage value of discount in whole numbers. Start and End Date - set dates only if the promotion is valid during a specified time period. 3 Click New to create a new Promotion. Click the Edit hyperlink to edit an existing Promotion. Click the Del (Delete) hyperlink to delete a Promotion. Change the Sort Order for how the Promotion(s) will be listed on a ticket, and click the Update Sort Order button.

Marketing: Marketing Email Marketing Email is used for the creation and storage of email marketing templates. Do NOT click Account Overview or Sign Out. These areas are controlled by your Beacon subscription and should never be used. Click the Create a Sender Address button to set up a required sender address. The following page will appear: Enter ME in the Description field to indicate the sender address is from you. Enter the other remaining required fields and click Save. You may have to scroll the page down in order to see the Save button. After clicking Save, you will be returned to a page listing the sender addresses you have created. Use the Marketing Email tab at the top of the page and select Create New. 4

Enter the Marketing Email Title. Pick a Sender Address from the drop-down menu. IMPORTANT: Select the ME sender address just created. Content Type should be set to the HTML + Plain text option. Choose how to send your Marketing Email should be set to the Send the same Marketing Email to all recipients option. Scroll down the page for more options. Selecting a Category for the new Marketing Email is an option, but not necessary. Click Save & Exit to leave the new Marketing Email process. C l i c k S t e p 2 - S e l e c t Recipients to continue setting up the new Marketing Email. The Recipients are actually selected in Beacon when using the Marketing Sets option to include sending an email to your clients. The only recipient you will be selecting in Step 2 will be yourself. If you have not yet created a Recipient List, you will need to create a list. 5

Click the Create A List button. Name the list ME to indicate yourself as the recipient. Click the Step 2 - Add Recipients button. Select the Add recipients manually option and enter your own email address. Feel free to add key team members to the recipient list so that they will also receive the test marketing emails you create in the future. Click the Step 3 - Verify & Save button after entering your own email address. 6

The email address(es) you entered will be listed. Remove an email address by clicking the trash can icon to the right. To return to the previous step, click the back to link for Step 2 - Add Recipients. Click the Verify & Save button when you have confirmed the email addresses are accurate. Click the Step 3 - Design button to design a new Marketing Email template or to edit an existing one. Designing a Marketing Email allows flexibility for selecting a pre-designed template or creating and saving your own template. Each template option is separated into many components, allowing the ease-of-use you are looking for. Choose from Basic Templates, Design Templates, Saved Templates, or Drag & Drop Wizard. 7

Click the desired category and template to make your selection. Basic Templates - select from available basic templates. Once selected, modify text fields, image fields, headers and banners. Design Templates - select from available templates already themed with colors, backgrounds, and images. Once selected, modify text fields, image fields, headers and banners. My Saved Templates - save your favorite templates to use over and over again. Drag & Drop Wizard - design your own template by dragging and dropping text fields, image fields, headers, banners, and dividers to accommodate your marketing needs. Enter the Subject for the marketing email. This area also allows you to Change, Save, Check SPAM Score, Preview, or Send A Test to ensure the marketing email will send without fail. The marketing email template is located below the Subject line and row of buttons. 8

Marketing: Marketing Sets: Email Output Marketing Sets allows you to search your database to find clients with specific criteria and send marketing emails to the matching clients. Click Marketing Set Name to edit an existing marketing set, or click New to create a new marketing set. After naming the new set, select the frequency and when to generate the set, the type of output, and which Marketing Email template to use. Click Save to return to the list, and click the Marketing Set Name to finish setting up the newly created marketing set. Click Select Filters to select the clients to receive the marketing email. To see a report of selected clients, select Online Report from the Output drop-down menu and enter the Next Generation information. Once the Online Report has been generated, go to the Marketing Reports option in Main Menu: Marketing. Marketing: Marketing Reports Each Online Report will be listed. Click Delete to remove the report from the list. Click View to view the details of the report. 9

Each report will display the Marketing Set name, Run Date of the marketing set, as well as client information with the current account balance. Marketing: Email Activity The Beacon system keeps a chronological log of company Email Activity, with information about delivered, opened, clicked, unsubscribed, invalid, and blocked emails. 10

Marketing: Avoiding SPAM Filters Email marketing plays an important role in your client communications and in the growth of your business. Before engaging in any email marketing activity, it is very important to ensure the deliverability of your emails by learning the rules of the road for proper email content. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use filters to scan email for malicious or unsolicited content, blocking delivery of those deemed as spam - and they keep score, too. In the same way credit agencies track your payment history and give you a credit score, ISPs track email addresses for spam content, assigning a score to each address. Too much detected spam content over time lowers your score, making it even more difficult to get your valuable emails delivered. Complicating everyone s task is the fact that each ISP has their own set of rules and will periodically change some of them as they try to keep up with unscrupulous spammers. There are, however, some general rules we can follow that will greatly reduce the chance of being blocked or landing in the spam folder. Following are some tips, as well as links to other resource material you can use to maximize the deliverability of your emails. Tip #1 - and the most important tip of all: Ask your clients to add your email address to their Address Book. These are any and all addresses you use when you send out emails. Employ all means at your disposal to have your clients do this, including word of mouth, cards at your front desk, and adding a footnote to all your emails urging clients to add your address, which leads to Tip #2: Include a paragraph in the footer of all emails asking that this address be included in their Address Book. The addition of your email address in the footer can go a long way in helping to avoid spam filters. For example, all STX emails include the following footnote (and yours should look something like this): To ensure continued news from <Company Name>, please add <company email> to your Address Book. Tip #3: DO NOT USE ALL CAPS IN YOUR SUBJECT LINE (and really limit their use elsewhere). Tip #4: Do not use really large font sizes. Tip #5: Avoid using trigger words or phrases, such as: Guaranteed Free Money Back Guarantee Buy Now Tip #6: Less is more. Sending too many emails too often sets off filter alarms, and likely numbs your audience to your message. Sending 2-3 emails each month to a targeted portion of your audience is much more effective than continuously blasting out emails to everyone on your client list. 11

There are other things you should do to maximize your effectiveness and avoid spam filters, and we ve included links to two good resources to consult before getting started. We highly recommend these two short reads: 10 Tips To Keep Email Out Of The Spam Folder: https://sendgrid.com/blog/10-tips-to-keepemail-out-of-the-spam-folder/ Email Marketing 101: Strategy Tips: https://sendgrid.com/blog/email-marketing-101-strategytips/ Even the largest and most reputable of companies experience blocked emails, but you can minimize yours by taking the time NOW to get familiar with the rules of the road. 12