This article walks through how to create a custom Email Contact List in eMarketing and how to import email addresses into a contact list.
Creating a Custom Email Contact List
By default, there will always be at least one contact list in our eMarketing system available to you, which syncs with your Dealer Management System (it is usually called Dealer System or Dealer News and Events). You can, however, create a customer contact list if you only want to email a special list.
The first thing you will want to do is create a custom contact list. To do this, navigate to the "Marketing Tools" page of the Intranet and launch eMarketing. Once there, you will want to click the "Contact Lists" tab and select "Create a Contact List."
On this page, enter the name of the contact list and click "save."
Run Direct Mail List
If you do not already have a file listing all your email contacts, you might be able to get the information you wanted from the Direct Mail list, for example, if you are trying to create a contact list of all your reward members.
To run this report, you will want to click on the gray "Direct Mail" tab of the "Marketing Tools" page, and click "Create Mail List."In this situation, you will want to check the first "Enable Criteria" box and check "Email" to filter your Reward Members list to only show customers who have email addresses on file.
Make sure to select which store(s) you want included on the right side and then click "Send" at the bottom. This will send a copy of the file to your email address on file and will also prompt for a download once its finished.
Formatting Email List for Import
Whether you are using the Direct Mail list or your own file, you will want to make sure it is properly formatted for importing into eMarketing. The only data you really need is the email address, but you may also want to include your customer's first and last names; each of these will need to be saved in their own columns in Excel.
If you want to include any additional information, here is a template of all the categories in our system that you can import: Email_Import_Template.csv
NOTE: We highly recommend including headers in this file; it will make importing the columns into the correct fields far easier.
Remove any columns that you don't want imported and save the file as a CSV.
NOTE: Keep in mind we have a 2M limit for these imports, so if you have a sizable list, you may need to break it up into separate files.
Importing Email List File into Contact List
To import your email list into the contact list you previously created, you will need to return to the eMarketing page, click on the "Contacts" tab and then select "Import Contacts from a File."
Select the contact list you are importing contacts into and click "Next."
If you have headers included in your CSV file (which we highly recommend), make sure you check the "Yes, this file contains headers" box on this next page. You can then click "Choose File" to select your CSV file from your computer.
Next, you will want to "Map" the different columns in your file to their corresponding field. This may sometimes fill in automatically if our system can identify the header, otherwise you can click on the drop-down to select the field you want that column of information to link to.
NOTE: Having the headers will really help you out here!
Once you have everything mapped as you would like, click next, and then click "Start Importing." This can take a few minutes depending on the size of your file. Our system will let you know how many contacts are added, how many duplicates were found (they are automatically removed during this scrub process), and if there are any lines containing "bad data;" this typically refers to contacts with missing or invalid email addresses.
Then that's it! You have imported your email contacts into your new, custom contact list.
If you have any trouble trying to create or import a custom email contact list, please let us know. We would be more than happy to help. You can reach out support staff at 414-326-4100 or at support@morethanrewards.com.