Re-engaging Customers who have Unsubscribed from PBE

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The envelope (email icon) with a red dot under the manage column, denotes 1 or more contacts that have unsubscribed from your e-blasts (personalized bulk emails.)

unsubscribed

 

During your next contact with these customers, you can ask for feedback to reduce future unsubscribes. e.g.; What was the main reason for you to unsubscribe? Too many e-blasts from our showroom? Content was not right?

If they decide to subscribe again, send them the following link:

https://www.showroomexchange.com/MaintainSubscription.aspx

Once they submit their address, Showroom Exchange will send an email with their profile. They can then resubscribe to your e-blasts.

Map Customer Locations In Showroom Exchange

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There are two ways to show the locations of your clients on a map:

1) Google Maps is ideal for small pockets
2) Google Earth export works well with entire continents.

 

1) Google Maps

First, select the clients you wish to see on a map by filtering them on your customer page (e.g. by state or by zip). Once you have your selection, click one of the globe icons. A popup window of Google maps will then show the locations of all of your selections, their information, and even their latest purchases by mfr. Keep in mind, only customers with valid addresses (dark globe icon vs. light) are considered.

google maps

2) Google Earth

Similar to the first way, filter the customers you are trying to see on a map, then click on the Google Earth icon as shown.
You will be asked “include recent purchase summary?” If you intend to forward this to a brand/mfr, you should select No, otherwise, for internal use, it’s fine to select Yes. Doing so will download a file you can to open with the Google Earth app (a free, quick, and easy web download).

Though we like Google Earth, we have not found a way to turn off the graphical “terrain” which obscures the push-pins.

KML files are not limited to Google Earth, We recommend…

…alternate tools such as http://umap.openstreetmap.fr/
ANY tool that can import a Google KML file will work.

One helpful change for UMAP is to change the default push-pin icon to a Circle.

 

 

Reduce the Risk of e-balsts Getting Tagged as Spam

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When composing your Personalized Bulk Email [PBE], use the list of available fields on the right (see screenshot below) to personalize your email blast to reduce the chances of your email being marked as spam.

Spammers rarely personalize, as they do not have full customer details, so not personalizing shows a similar behavior and puts your e-blast in their category.

Related:

 

Personalizing Bulk Email

Customize This View: Save Time By Seeing Only What You Need

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The following 5 Tabs can be customized to show or hide specific columns:
Customers, Orders, Invoices, Credit Memos (for those that do not use Negative invoices) and Notes

This feature is ideal for changing visible columns for different tasks.


Why do this?

To clean up your view and reduce it to only the information you need to accomplish unique tasks. Focus on the info you really need by keeping unwanted info/columns out of the way.

Example: If you’re making market calls, you may want to see limited # of columns like Name, Phone #, Market Call Label, etc.

customize view market call example

 

 

Where is “Customize This View”?

Customize This View

 

 

Simply check the boxes next to the columns you want to see and click “Save Selections”.

customize this view screen

 

 

AOL and Yahoo have changed their ‘Email Routing Policy’

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  • IF YOU’RE USING YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME, SKIP THIS POST.
  • IF YOU’RE NOT USING …@aol.com or …@yahoo.com, SKIP TO ‘SUGGESTION’

A few weeks ago, Yahoo and very recently AOL changed their DMARC policy to stop fraudulent emails.

How does this affect Showroom Exchange subscribers who use the e-blast (PBE) feature?
All e-blast senders that use a ‘From’ address with …@aol.com or …@yahoo.com will not be able to test their e-blasts. AOL & Yahoo will reject the inbound tests. Also, their deliverability will be negatively impacted.

WORKAROUND:
We recommend using your own domain (e.g.; your_company_name.com) instead of yahoo.com, aol.com or other Majour-Email-Service-Provider.com.

HOW:
If you need help registering a new domain and/or setting up email addresses for an existing domain, please contact your I.T. adviser.

SUGGESTION:
It won’t be long before other ISPs, such as Gmail, Hotmail & Outlook, make DMARC policy changes similar to YAHOO & AOL. So don’t replace AOL or Yahoo with Gmail or another majour email hosting service. Establish your own domain name.

Does the DMARC policy change impact deliverability for my recipients (retail stores that use AOL or yahoo), if I’m already using a non-AOL or non-yahoo domain?
No.

more about DMARC policy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMARC

Limiting Access to Showroom Exchange from your showroom ONLY!

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An IP address is assigned to every device (computer, mobile phone, etc.) that makes a connection to the internet. Think of IP address as caller-Id for your land-line or cell-phone.
Showroom Exchange use IP addresses to help you restrict access based on physical location, e.g.; while away from the showroom.

To begin, identify the IP address of the location that access will be limited to:
(e.g.; from a showroom computer follow the steps below)


1. Point your browser to Google and search for “What is my IP address”

ip1

 

2. Login to Showroom Exchange & select the username you wish
to limit access to under “Setup Categories | Showroom Users”

 

ip2

 

userlist

3. Scroll down and enter your IP address under “Access IPs” and click save.

* * * note: you can enter multiple locations by separating them with a comma * * *
you may also use fully qualified names. this is especially helpful for most internet services that provide dynamic IP Addresses. For more information visit: DynDNS.org, changeip.com, no-ip.com or search for dynamic dns provider.

 

ip4

 

Users will now see the following message when attempting to access Showroom Exchange from any location other than the one you have authorized.

 

seb11

 

How to Add/Edit/Copy/Remove user-IDs

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Add/edit/remove user-IDs once in Showroom Exchange

 

Admins can find this option under Setup Categories

 

u1

 

Select “add record” to add a new user-ID

 

u2

 

Click “copy user” to add a new user-IDs with the settings/access level of an existing user-ID

 

u3

 

Delete user-IDs by selecting the appropriate user and scrolling down to “delete” on their preferences page.

 

u4

u5

Why do exports to Excel look like this?

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Have your Excel exports ever looked like the following screenshot?

ex1

The reason: your computer is not setup to auto-open .CSV files with Microsoft Excel.

To work around this, use the save feature as follows.

ex2

Locate the downloaded file, right click -> open with -> choose default program…

ex3

choose Microsoft Excel and make sure “Always use the selected program…” is checked

ex4

All future exports to .CSV will now open in Microsoft Excel by default.

2 Reasons to Make a Customer Inactive

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1. Less clutter, FOCUS on those that matter. Searches/Filters will load faster.

2. Inactive customers are excluded from order entry. They can also be excluded from reporting and search results.

NOTE: You can also make other entities in Showroom Exchange active/inactive, such as mfrs and reps.

Make a customer active/inactive by going to their page and unchecking/checking the box next to active.

inactive customers 2

Exclude inactive customers on the customer tab by clicking on “active” next to “status”:

inactive customers

Include/exclude inactive customers in reports. Uncheck or check the box by “exclude inactive customers” at the bottom of the report screen. You can find this option on most reports.

inactive customers 3