2008 Procedure 30 E-Marketing
E-Marketing is primarily designed to instantly promote distressed tee times. In addition, it can be used for sending newsletters, tee time thank you messages, reservation reminders and birthday offers, and uploading customer e-mails to E-Marketing companies. Once you set up an Internet connection and a POP3 account, there are two easy steps to sending your first E-marketing piece: creating a template and identifying your audience.
Alternative tools that allow additional customized output and data selection are available using Mail Merge in Microsoft Word.
Entering E-Mail Account Information
Before sending out your first E-Marketing piece, you must make sure that your e-mail account is properly set up. The E-Marketing module uses its own e-mail client to send mail but uses Outlook Express settings. Thus, once you set up Outlook Express with an account that can successfully send and receive e-mail, you can use E-Marketing. A good test of your Outlook Express setup is to send an e-mail to yourself. It is important to test this before going to the next step because diagnostics for a failed Outlook Express setup only show up in the Outlook Express interface.
By default, the E-Marketing e-mail client uses Outlook Express default account settings. However, it will use an account named "Fore! Reservations" if your technical staff wants to keep it isolated from the default account.
To configure the e-mail account settings:
1) Log into Fore! Reservations on the machine with Outlook Express set up.
2) File | Setup | Options.
3) Click on the E-Tools tab.
4) Click the E-Mail Account button.
5) A confirmation dialog box asks if you are sure you want to import the settings. Click OK and the settings are imported. Click No to not import and to just enter the screen.
6) The E-Mail window is displayed.
7) Configure the account settings.
8) Configure Burst Quantity and Sleep Minutes (see Burst Quantity and Sleep Minutes on page 89).
9) Click OK.
Create a New Template
1) Log into Fore! Reservations.
2) Select the View | Marketing | E-Mail menu item.
3) Click the New button.
4) Type in a name for this template and press OK.
5) To insert a merge field, select a field from the pull-down menu and click Insert.
6) Insert your logo.
a) Copy your company logo URL,
i) Go to Start | Programs | Internet Explorer to bring up the browser.
ii) In the address field, enter your company web page address (i.e. http://suppot.teeitup.com).
iii) Right-click on your company logo and select Properties.
iv) In the properties screen, right-click on the URL and click on Select All which highlights the address.
v) Right-click on the highlighted address and select copy.
b) Paste your logo,
i) Put your cursor where you want the logo placed.
ii) Press the "Insert image from remote server" button and press Ctrl+V to paste the copied URL into the URL field and press OK.
7) Type in the text of your offer. Enhance your message by changing font style, size and color as well as other formatting options available in the button ribbon.
8) Repeat step 3) through 6) to enter additional templates.
Sending an E-Marketing Piece
1) Log into Fore! Reservations.
2) Select the View | Marketing | E-Mail menu item and click the Setup Tab.
3) Click the Template pull-down menu and select an existing template. If none are applicable, see the previous procedure to create a new template.
4) Click the start date pull-down menu to select the first date of open tee times that you would like to offer.
5) Click the end date pull-down menu to select the last date.
6) Click the Start Time pull-down menu to select the first open tee time you would like to offer.
7) Click the End Time pull-down menu to select the last time.
8) Select what customers to send this offer to by clicking the applicable customer type and customer category checkboxes.
9) To include only customers who have not played recently, check the Last Played Before checkbox and select a date.
10) To include only customers with less than a certain number of rounds, check the Less than checkbox and indicate the specific number of rounds.
11) The offer code is automatically generated, but you may select to offer a promotional rate that appears in the subject line by filling in that field with a dollar value.
12) If your facility accepts Internet reservations, click the Internet ID pull-down menu to insert hyperlinks to the Internet booking engine in the message.
13) When it is finished, click the OK button.
14) A customer pick list is displayed showing the customers that fit the profile you defined.
15) Remove individual customers from the list by unchecking the checkbox next to the name.
16) If your template does not promote specific distressed tee times, change the subject line to better describe the purpose of the e-mail.
17) Click the OK button.
18) If the preview checkbox is marked, a sample e-mail is displayed to allow final confirmation before sending. Click OK to continue or click Cancel to quit.
19) Facility information is appended to the bottom of each e-mail to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.
20) All messages are sent through Fore! Reservations according to the burst quantity and sleep minutes configured during the account set up. Make sure to leave Fore! Reservations open while these e-mail are being sent.
The following is an example of a finished e-mail using a logo and mail merge fields to customize the email.
Other E-Marketing Pieces
The E-Marketing module can be used to promote other events at your course in addition to distressed tee times.
Newsletter
The newsletter option allows you to send an e-marketing piece regardless of when a customer last played. It also does not advertise distressed tee times, so you have great flexibility in promoting your golf course.
1) Follow steps 1) to 3) in Sending an E-Marketing Piece.
2) Check the Newsletter option.
3) Select what customers to send this offer to by clicking the applicable customer type and customer category checkboxes.
4) Follow steps 13) to 18) in Sending an E-Marketing Piece.
Birthday
The birthday option allows you to send an e-marketing piece to individuals whose birthdays are within a specified date range.
1) Follow steps 1) to 3) in Sending an E-Marketing Piece.
2) Check the Birthday option.
3) Select a start date and end date. These dates correspond to customer birthdays that fall in this range. Year is ignored when determining the list of customers.
4) Select what customers to send this offer to by clicking the applicable customer type and customer category checkboxes.
5) Follow steps 13) to 18) in Sending an E-Marketing Piece.
Thank You
The thank you option allows you to send an e-marketing piece directed at customers who have booked a round of golf in a specified date range that you specify. You can use this option to send a thank you e-mail to those who have played recently, or as a reminder to those who are going to be playing in the near future.
1) Follow steps 1) to 3) in Sending an E-Marketing Piece.
2) Check the Thank You option.
3) Select a start date and end date. These dates correspond to the reservation date of customers who booked a tee time in this range. No show customers are removed from the list of customers.
4) Select what customers to send this offer to by clicking the applicable customer type and customer category checkboxes.
5) Follow steps 13) to 18) in Sending an E-Marketing Piece.
Additional Filters
The additional filter checkboxes allow you to send an e-marketing piece directed to those who fall within a certain demographic, who have purchased a sales item, or by expiration day, etc. The e-mail is sent to all customers who fall within the selected option regardless of customer type.
1) Follow steps 1) to 3) in Sending an E-Marketing Piece.
2) Check a filter checkbox of your choice and fill in any required information.
3) Follow steps 13) to 18) in Sending an E-Marketing Piece.
E-Marketing Upload
The E-Marketing module can be used to upload customer e-mails to E-Marketing companies. Automatic uploading eliminates manually e-mailing spreadsheets of e-mails to your E-Marketing company.
The E-Marketing tab allows the set up of uploading customer e-mail lists to E-Marketing companies. Uploading an e-mail list can then be used in E-Marketing in Fore! Reservations.
Upload URL is the website of the E-Marketing company.
Script URL is the URL ofthe uploading script.
Start URL is a website that opens in the browser when the upload is complete. This can be any website, but the login page of your EMarketing account can be entered so that once the upload is complete, you can log in to your account to check the e-mails that have uploaded.
User ID is the login identification for the EMarketing account.
Password is the password for the E-Marketing account.
To upload to an E-Mail Marketing company:
1) Open the E-Mail Marketing module by selecting View | Marketing | E-Mail.
2) Click the Setup tab.
3) Use the filter options to select those customers to upload.
4) Click OK to display the customer pick list.
5) Click Upload.
6) Once complete, a confirmation is displayed and the Start URL web page is opened in a browser window.
The Pellucid tab works the same way. Enter the Upload URL, Script URL, User ID, and Password. To upload to Pellucid, select View | Reports | Summary | Pellucid.
