[IPS Marketplace] Email Drip Campaigns

[NewsBot]

Introducing email drip campaigns!

Drip campaigns are a defined series of emails that are sent automatically to members. For instance, you may want to welcome new users who register on your community, and then send a follow up email a month later to make sure they're getting the most from your site. Or you may wish to send a user a series of marketing related emails when they purchase a specific product on your site. The use-cases are endless, and email drip campaigns are a powerful and versatile tool in any marketer's toolbox.

Until now you would have had to do this manually, maintaining lists of email addresses and remembering dates that you've contacted them. Not anymore! Now you can put your users on "set it and forget it" email campaigns with just a few clicks.

How does it work?

In the AdminCP under the "Members" tab, a new area is available named "Drip Campaigns". You create one or more campaigns in this area, and then one or more steps for each campaign. It's perfectly fine to create just one step if you wish, such as an introductory email to new users. Or, alternatively, you can create multiple steps - as many as you want.

When you create a campaign you define whether the campaign be automatically or manually assigned? Currently you can automatically assign campaigns by:

• New user registration
• User is moved to a new (primary) group
• User purchases a product or subscription from your site
• User makes their first post

After creating the campaign you will then create one or more steps in the campaign. When creating steps you can configure:

• The title and body of the step. You can use a WYSIWYG editor, or a code editor for finer control.
• Whether the notification to the user should be sent via email or personal conversation.
  • If using email, whether to use the email wrapper or not
  • If using personal conversation, the conversation starter account
• How long since the last step (or since the campaign was assigned to the user for the first step) before the contact should be sent.

And then that's it!

If the campaign is set to be assigned automatically, you don't have to do anything further.

If the campaign is not set automatically, or you wish to manually assign it, you can do this from one of two manners:

• When viewing a member account in the AdminCP, you can see which campaigns the member has been assigned to, the current progress, the date the next step will process, and the ability to cancel, resume or restart any campaigns. You can also assign new campaigns when viewing an individual member.
• Alternatively, you can mass-assign members to any specific campaign. A member search form will be presented allowing you to define which members to assign, and all members that match your filter selections (the same selections available when sending a bulk mail) will be assigned.

I'll be looking out for feedback as to new ideas and auto-assignment requests as well, so leave me your feedback.

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