The Autoresponder tool (ATR) in Contact Manager (CTM) sends out a ‘set and forget’ sequence of timed messages (emails) to contacts. Remember, Contact Manager is for all your University contacts that are not students who are already stored in Student Database.)
Useful for:
General Newsletters - to all contacts who have given you email permission.
Keep warm emails - to leads (contacts who completed your CTM web forms, content based on what they enquired about)
Alumni activation emails - to ask them to book online for your Alumni events.
Resource delivery - to your schools and college contacts, with a link to downloadable resources from your Document Library (DOC).
VIP offers - to your 5-star contacts (your best offers, opportunities, activities and content).
Definitions:
Autoresponder is the name of the tool in Contact Manager that can send out delayed triggered emails to contacts.
Sequence is the collection of emails that go out, one after the other, and the Segment that is used to find all matching contacts. (If you have used Workflows & Touchpoints, a Sequence is similar to a Workflow.)
Message is an email comprising a template built in Template Builder to display editable merged fields from each contact's record. (If you have used Workflows & Touchpoints, a Message is similar to a Touchpoint.)
Timing is the day and time of day a message goes out, to go out immediately it could be set to 0 days, if 7 days later then it could be set to 7 days at 13:30.
Autoresponder vs Workflow?
This is a bit like using Touchpoints where, after students submit a (prospectus request) form, they get follow-up emails - with one big difference:
unlike a Touchpoint (which relies upon the student doing something proactive, such as requesting a prospectus, booking an event, or applying) any segment of Contacts can now become the list for your series of emails.
Message from an Autoresponder Sequence > Triggered by meeting a segment's criteria > ie: YoE = 2025
Touchpoint from a Workflow > Triggered by a student action, ie: booked an event
Example: you want to send monthly keep-warm emails to your teachers who work at secondary schools. Easy, build and select that segment in your new Autoresponder Sequence, and the series of emails goes out to all contacts who meet that segment’s criteria.
FAQs
Q. How many messages can I add to a sequence?
A. There is a maximum of 500 messages per sequence.
Q. Is there a maximum 'days' ahead I can set a message to go after?
A. There is no maximum. You choose 1, 7, 50, 168, 402, etc.
Q. Can I pause sending when a Sequence is live?
A. Yes. You can change the status of any message to 'draft' or the Sequence to 'draft' and no messages go out again.
Q. Can I let the recipients on a Sequence keep receiving messages but allow no new contacts to join?
A. Yes. You can change the status of the Sequence to 'not accepting arrivals' and, even if new contacts do subsequently meet the segment's criteria, they will not be added to the sequence. The contacts already on the sequence will receive the remainder of the messages still set to 'live'
Q. Can I change the segment when a Sequence is live?
A. Yes. You can edit the segments, editing, adding and removing filters whenever you like. To do so, you must pause the Sequence before editing your segment so you avoid any 'half-finished' segments being used.
Q. How quickly does a message go out?
A. Usually within 15 minutes.
Q. Meeting the segment's criteria later on?
A. Let's imagine you have a Sequence of 5 emails with a send time of 14:00 on Day #1, Day #2, Day #3, Day #4, and Day #5, that all get sent out to this Segment containing 3 criteria:
contact_firstname = "Dom"
AND
contact_lastname = "Yeadon"
AND
lead_status = "Enquiry"
If a lead comes in called "Dom Yeadon" at 11:00 one day, as it has only met 2 of the 3 criteria, nothing happens. However, as soon as an officer updates the Lead_Status to "Enquiry" it then meets all 3 criteria and will get the Day #1 message at 14:00 if the last criteria was met BEFORE 14:00. It will get the Day #1 message immediately if the criteria was met AFTER 14:00, let's say at 19:30 that evening. It will then get the remainder of the Day #2, Day #3, Day #4, and Day #5 emails at 14:00 on those subsequent days.