Recording marketing activity

[123oliver]

Hi

I have taken the template for contact management and converted the fields to suit my needs.

Each record will be for a client and I will be recording their address, my main contact, secondary contact and various information about their company. So far so good and all up and running!

The bit I am stuck with is to do with recording marketing activity.

I want to be able to do the following

Do a search/sort and select say 50 companies.

Then I will print an address label for these companies to use for a mailshot.

I then want to be able to record on all of their files that I have sent them the mailshot eg flyerJuly2010.

I would need to be able to keep a history of all mailshots sent.

I would also like to be able to use this recorded information to search for companies that have received mailshots.

I pressume that this is possible but just cant work out the best way or how to do it!

All help appreciated.

Thanks

Oliver.

[Vaughan]

Take a look at the e-mail campaign template for ideas.

[123oliver]

Hi

Thanks but no inspiration from that I'm afraid - it is very different to what I want to do.

Cheers

Oliver.

[David McQueen]

Hi Oliver,

When you do your search, you will have found the records for your mailing labels. The problem becomes recording that you did indeed make them a mailing label for such and such campaign.

Create another table. Call it events. When you create a campaign, give it a name, probably easiest in a global field, but would most properly be another table of campaigns in and of itself. Then when you script out print labels, actually have a routine that goes through your list of contacts and creates a record in the events table with the contact's prime key, the campaign you are creating the label for and most likely the date of the campaign.

This can be shown in each contact record, for that contact, through a portal keyed ot he contact's prime key and the campaigns would be searchable through the related fields.

I use a similar thing in my communication capture in my CRM program, Little Helper. go to :

http://www.lichen-software.com/dbase_comm.html

That will show you some screen shots with main contact info + a communications history portal which should give you an example of the type of set up you could arrange.

HTH

Dave

[123oliver]

Hi

Thanks for your help. I am trying to get my head around this and have started work on it.

Cheers

Oliver.

[123oliver]

Hi

I'm afraid to say that I got nowhere!

I'll re write want I want to do as I might help you to help me!

I want to be able to make a selection of records (using whatever criteria I decide)

Then I will email or post a marketing flyer to this selection of records.

I then want to be able to record on each of the records that they were sent for example 'July mailshot 1' or 'Christmas email'.

In my mind this would be easiest with a button to click that would enter information into a portal on each of the records?

I am using a bastardized (improved)version of the contact management template and have added a tab at the bottom for Marketing Activity.

If I then got a sale as a result of a mailshot I would tick a box to say that the mailshow was succesful with that record.

Any help welcome as this is the last thing that I need to do before I can populate my database and start work. I don't even know if this is possible or you might be able to suggest a better option.

Cheers

Oliver.

[David McQueen]

Hi Oliver,

I am not familiar with the template you are using, so I cannot comment directly to it. these facilities may already be built in in some form, but I cannot say.

1. Finding a list of people

In your contacts database, create a search screen that has all of the criteria that you would search by. give it provisions to have multiple screens so that you may have OR as well as AND searches. Note that in FileMaker, on a screen in find mode, all items on one screen that are entered act as an AND search - all items must be true for the record to be found. If you then do New Record Request (Actually a new Request in this case) you are presented with another blank screen. All items put onto this screen also act as an AND search BUT items entered on the first screen versus items entered on the second screen act as an OR search ie: if the items on screen one are true OR the items on screen 2 are true, find the record. Once the search is complete, have the program return to a list view of the found people.

On this list view, have OMIT buttons for each record so that if your search has been broader than you require, you can OMIT those particular records.

You would now be ready to do a campaign.

2. Campaign

a.) Depending on what you are doing, you may just print the list above and use it for generating mail outs. these are the people you want to record as having been part of the campaign.

b.) You have to have some provision to identify the campaign. Whether it is a campaign table of all campaigns or just a global field where you type in a campaign name... You want a name.

c.) You want to record that the people on your list have been part of this campaign. I am assuming that people can become part of more than one campaign.

Create a table of Events. The fields in this table will be a prime key, a constant key (indexed number which equals 1) if you so desire, a client key and depending on whether or not you have a campaigns table either a campaign key or a campaign name.

You then want a script that processes this campaign. Here is what it should do:

i) go to the first record in your list of selected clients

ii) capture the client key and the campaign name

iii) go to the events table and create a new record and enter both the client key and the campaign name or campaign key

iv) continue on going through your whole client list for that campaign performing this same operation.

d.) You want to be able to see in each client record what campaigns they have been part of. You need to create a relationsi-o between the clients and the events based on the Prime key in clients and the client key in events and then create a portal in the cleint record that shows that information.

e. You want to be able to search each client record for past event participation. In your search screen, also show the related fields for events. You could also create a drop down list of all events to help in your searching. Searching on this related field will search from the client table through to the event table to find clients who have participated in a certain event.

f. You may want to be able to enter data into the events records for each client, Just add the applicable fields into the event table and express them in the portal in clients.

HTH

dave

[123oliver]

Hi

I'm afraid that I'm stuck early doors!

I can't find any info anywhere on how to create a search screen?

Thanks

Oliver.

[David McQueen]

1. If you have a layout which already has all of the fields you wish to search on,just duplicate it. If the original has fields in portals, on the search screen, remove the portal and leave the fields. That way you can search through to related data markers.

If you do not,build a new layout.

In either case it is a good idea to change the background or do some thing such that anyone on this layout knows that they are there for searching, not entering data.

2. On this layout also put some buttons:

Search

New Request

Delete Request

First

Previous

Next

Last

For First Previous etc, I usually use << < | > >>

3. Tie it together with scripts;

There are a lot of ways to do this and some developers have their own pet ways. All I am trying to do is give you a good idea of where to start.

A.) Enter Search Script - This starts from some other layout

Go to Search Layout

View as form

Adjust size

Enter find mode

A person is now ready to enter search criteria.

B.) Perform Search Script

Set Error capture (On)

Perform Find

Error trap for no records found section

If (GetLastError) is not equal to 0 (you did not find any records)

Show a dialogue - No records found with buttons Try Again and OK

If "Try Again" - Perform "Enter Search Script"

Else - Show all records and go back to where you started from and Halt Script

Exiting the error trap

From here on assumes you found records

Go to the layout where you want to show your search results

View as a list

Halt script

C.) New Search Request Script - brings up a new blank search screen when used in Find Mode

New Record/Request

D.) Delete Search Request Script

Delete Record/Request - Perform without dialogue

E.) View First, Previous,Next, Last Search Screens

Go To Record/Request/Page (First)

Go To Record/Request/Page (Previous)

Go To Record/Request/Page (Next)

Go To Record/Request/Page (Last)

In Find Mode,these review search requests.

You end up with a dedicated screen for searching with the provisions to add or delete search requests. Somewhere in there you have to make the decision as to whether or not you want to show the status area for it's available built in functions in Find Mode.

That should give you a good start.

FWIW- I start almost every script with:

Allow User Abort (Off)

Set Error Capture (On)

Edited July 18, 2010 by Guest