Creating a Holiday Reminder Direct Mail Campaign

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Revision as of 13:56, 21 April 2008

1. Launch the Mercury Marketing module.
2. On the Welcome panel, click Create a New Campaign.
3. On the Create Campaign panel, in the Campaign Name field, enter your campaign name.
4. Select a referral code for the campaign (or add a new one if necessary).
5. Select Direct Mail as the Distribution Type.
6. From the Campaign Type list, select Holiday.
7. Click Next.
8. In the Select Target List panel, click Select a predefined list, and choose the list you want to use from the list at the bottom of the panel.
9. Click Next.
10. The options that display on the Key Criteria panel depend on the list you selected in the Select Target List panel. Provide the information requested and click Next.
    
    Note: If you have multiple stores, remember to choose the store that contains the customer records that you want to extract. If you select the main store, the program does not extract duplicate customers if you have customers saved at multiple stores. If you extract by Top Customers, the system extracts the top number of customers at the selected stores. However because the system is designed to eliminate duplicate records, the system eliminates duplicate top customers if the extracted customers are top customers at more than one store (therefore you may select to extract 100 top customers, but because duplicates are eliminated, only 50 are actually extracted).
    
    
11. The Output Fields panel displays all of the output fields that are available for extraction. Output fields are the merge fields that will be inserted into your document. Click Next.
12. The Preview and Edit List panel allows you to preview the list of customers before you save your campaign. Before reaching the final panel in the wizard, review the list and see if you want to remove any customers from the campaign. To do this, right-click on the customer record and then click Delete Row. Any records that are highlighted are missing information.
    
    Note: If you type information in the grid, the information is saved only in this specific customer list (the information is saved only in this particular .csv file and is not saved in your customer database).
    
    
13. Click Next.
14. On the Save Campaign panel, from the Template list, select the template you want to use. This should correspond to the holiday for which you are creating the campaign. If you want to see the template before merging, click Preview. You can change the text of the template by clicking the Edit button. Use this option only to change the text of the template.
15. If you want to print post cards, select this option. Postcards are printed four to an 8.5-by-11-inch sheet of paper. You also will need to fill in the Return Address area if you create post cards.
16. Select Text Only if you want to use a template that does not have any graphics. The letter is printed as formatted text only. This is useful if the paper you are printing on already has graphics.
17. In the Sender field, type the name of the person signing the letter or postcard, for example the manager or owner of the store.
18. Click Generate Mailing Labels if you want Microsoft Word to generate mailing labels. If you select this option, select Three Across.
19. Depending on whether you plan on sending your mailing list to an external printing service or whether you are printing the letters or postcards yourself, you can select to open the output in Microsoft Word. FTD recommends that if you are using a printing service, you do not select this option, and just send the customer file (located in C:\Wings\Customer Lists) and the template (located in C:\Wings\Office Templates\Mercury Forms) to the printing service. Otherwise, select Open in Word.
20. Select Execute Campaign Now.
21. Click Finish. If you did not select Open in Word, your customer list saves as a .csv file in the C:\Wings\Customer Lists directory. The file name is the campaign name followed by the date and time that you saved the campaign.
    
    

If you selected Open in Word, you receive a message stating that the merge will take a few minutes. Click OK. If you are merging a large number of customers, this process takes a few minutes. You will not see a progress bar or any indication that the program is working. Please be patient until you receive a response from the program letting you know that the merge is complete. When the program is finished with the merge you will receive the message Mail Merge Operation completed successfully. The application will now be closed. Click OK to complete the process and close Mercury Marketing. Your letters/postcards will display in Microsoft Word.

1. To save the letters/postcards, click the File menu, then click Save. FTD recommends saving the file in the C:\Wings\Marketing Lists directory, so that you can access the letters by clicking the Find my Merged Documents and Mailing Labels on the first panel of the Marketing Wizard. Type a name and select a location to save the file, then click Save.
2. To print the letters/postcards, in Microsoft Word, on the File menu, click Print.