Email Design Services - A Case Study
Background
Tools-Warehouse are a successful online retailer of power tools, hand tools and accessories, with more than 30,000 products on their ecommerce website, powered by axis vMerchant, with axis diplomat running their back office operation.
The Brief
Having run the website for some time, and having accumulated a good database of email addresses from previous visitors, Tools-Warehouse wished to start sending regular monthly offer emails to their customer base.
Their requirements were:
- to use their axis diplomat system to send the emails
- to personally address each email
- to send professionally designed emails without needing the in-house design skills
- to be able to generate each email with the minimal technical ability
- to be sure of generating emails readable by the maximum number of clients (for example, Outlook, GMail, HotMail, SmartPhone Apps, etc.)
- to maximise the deliverability of emails through spam filters
The Solution
The solution from axisfirst was as follows:
Using our design and development skills, we created an email template, which resides in a hidden folder on the axis vMerchant-based tools-warehouse.co.uk website. This allows the axis diplomat software to access it for sending the emailshot.
Because the template is resident within the axis vMerchant website, it has access to all of the product information a normal web page has. This allows it to generate a list of products that are flagged as Special Offer or Featured Item within axis diplomat, as well as up-to-date product descriptions, prices and images.
The standard Content-Management System (CMS) within axis vMerchant is then used to update the introductory paragraph within the email.
The Send eMailshot function within the axis diplomat CRM (Customer Relationship Management) module is then used to send the emails.
As each email is sent, replacements in the CMS-managed introductory text are made automatically by the Send eMailshot function; for example, {Salutation} is replaced with the actual addressee's name so Hello {Salutation} becomes Hello Alan, Hello Brian, etc. on each email.
Finally, to ensure maximum deliverability, the emails are sent through a 3rd party email server provided by Dyn - this service costs from as little as $3 per month!