Trying out the Mass Mailing Feature at TeamLab

As someone of you already knows, an important feature was added into the CRM module with the latest release and I would like to lay our cards on the table. The option I’m telling you about is mass mailing and it’s available in beta version only. Reading this post, you will learn how to access, use and enjoy it forgetting any other email marketing services. Let’s stipulate at the very beginning that only portal administrators have the right to all these advantages!

From now on you can generate a recipient list and use any third-party emailing program or try out sending emails to your customers via TeamLab internal engine. To do that, please proceed through the following steps:

1. Enter your TeamLab portal using your personal login details.

2. Open the CRM module clicking the corresponding link in the middle of the start page or at the very top of any other page.

3. The ‘Contacts’ tab will open letting you select recipients of your future email checking the boxes next to them. You can also use filters to facilitate the search for the needed clients and a box at the very top to mark all the contacts displayed in the list.

4. Click the ‘Send Email’ button over the contact list.

5. Select the ‘Internal SMTP’ option.

Note: bear in mind that you can send an email to maximum 1,000 recipients at once.

6. If the SMTP server is not configured for your portal yet, you will see the ‘Configure the SMTP’ window where you will need to set the server parameters:

• Host – specify the domain name you use.
• Port – specify the email port. The standard SMTP port is 25.
• Authentication – check the box to ensure that only the authorized users can use the server.
• Host Login and Host Password – specify your login and password in order to access the SMTP server, if needed.
• Sender Display Name – specify the name of the sender which will be displayed in the ‘From’ field.
• Sender Email Address – specify the email address of the sender.
• Enable SSL – check the box to enable encryption in client-server communications.

After you finished, click the ‘Save’ button.

Note: if you need to make some changes to some SMTP settings you can do that on the 'General Settings' page of the CRM module.

7. The ‘Compose Mail’ page will open. In the ‘From’ field you will see the sender name and email address indicated while configuring the SMTP server. The ‘To’ field shows the number of the selected contacts. All you need to do is enter the ‘Subject’ for your letter and type in your message. The ‘Formatting Toolbar’ helps you format your text changing font style, font color, alignment, size etc. You can find more precise information on how to use these tools in our Help Center.

If you need to add some variables to your message make use of personal tags.

For example, if you wish to add the recipient name to the salutation, just place the mouse cursor at the point where you want the variable to be added, then select an appropriate tag from the drop-down list and click the ‘Add to Letter Body’. In our case it will be: ‘FirstName’ and ‘LastName’ as we send our letter to ‘Persons’. As a result, you will see the following line: Dear $(Person.First Name) $(Person.Last Name).

The necessary data will be automatically taken from your TeamLab CRM customer database.

You can also attach a certain file to your message. Click the ‘Show file attachment panel’ link below the ‘Letter Body’ field and using the ‘Attach File’ button browse your hard disk drive for the necessary file.

You can also store this letter in history checking the corresponding box. If you do so, this email will be added to the ‘History’ tab displayed on each customers’ page.

8. Click the ‘Next (to preview)’ button to preview your email.

Note: the following text watermark will be included into your letter: "Powered by TeamLab.com".

9. Click the ‘Send’ button to proceed or the ‘Back’ button if you need to edit the letter.

10. After you pressed ‘Send’, the ‘Sending Mail’ page will open to let you follow the sending process. Clicking the ‘Abort blanket mailing’ button, you can cancel the process. On this page, you will see the progress in percent as well as total emails, how many of them have been already sent, estimated end time, and errors if any occurred.

That’s all! Now you can start trying out this new feature helping TeamLab CRM become a full-featured integrated tool for creating, maintaining, and enriching the customer data base of a company. Thank you in advance! If you face some errors or bugs, please do not hesitate to write to us at support@teamlab.com.