MarketU Frequently asked questions

Q.   What is a campaign?

• A campaign is a particular email based on a pre-designed or customer built template targeted at a list of email addresses – this might be one list or many lists of email addresses.

Q.   What is an email list?

• An email list in its simplest form is a group of email addresses. You can have one big list but we recommend that you set up specific mailing lists and give them names for easy reference in MarketU so you always know which list you are referring to and who you targeted for any given campaign. For example Customers, Newsletter Email List, Event Customers and so on. This also makes it much easier for you to analyse the response you get from a campaign.

Q.   What is a master list of emails in MarketU and what is its relationship to other?

• Your master list is just that – the definitive list of all email contacts you have set up or imported in MarketU. You can have the same contact appearing in any number of individual mailing lists but that contact will appear only once in the master list. If you need to update an email address you only need to update it in the master list and any individual mailing lists it appears in will also be updated.

Q.   How do I set up an email list?

• MarketU is very flexible. You can manually enter the email contacts into the system or if you already have a list then this can easily be imported into MarketU using a .csv file format so you don’t have to type in the addresses again.  You can also export lists so you can keep your MarketU and office systems synchronised.

Q.   What is a template?

• A template is a formatted email design that you can tailor with your own words and pictures. MarketU features a large number of templates to choose from and more are being added all the time.  This gives a very professional look to your emails which makes your email message more powerful and more likely to be read by the recipient.  As well as the pre-designed templates we can also design you custom templates to suit your exact needs – just email us for a no obligation chat about this option.

Q.   What is an HTML format email? What is a plain text format email? 

• Emails in MarketU can be set up in either format. Some older email programs only support non HTML plain text so this is why MarketU allows both types of email to be created. HTML format gives a graphical look to the email including pictures and clickable sections, links etc. It can look very similar to a web page. Plain text is a much simpler format largely consisting of text. These can be clickable words if required. In both types of email you can have fixed content and variable content.

Q.   What is fixed and variable content in an email?

• Fixed content is the part of the email which everyone receives. Variable content relates to the elements which are linked to the recipient e.g. name, address, email, telephone number etc. You should aim to include at least some variable content in order to personalise your email messages and MarketU enables you to set up both elements very easily using the templates and the simple onscreen prompts.

Q.   What is an alias ?

• An alias is an alternative email address. Within MarketU you establish your primary email address and then a series of alias email addresses (if required). Customers typically choose an alias to match the campaign and differentiate campaign responses from normal day to day business email. So for example you might have a Newsletter email alias, a Special Offer email alias and so on . 

Q.   What is a bounce?

• A bounce is an attempt to deliver an email to a particular address which fails.  A failure to deliver can arise for a number of reasons - you simply got the wrong address by misspelling, the mailbox is full, the mailbox is programmed to reject email from certain addressees. MarketUallows you decide how often you want the system to retry delivery if a problem is encountered by setting the number of bounces. You can change the default number of bounces (1) under your “my Account” tab settings. You can decide whether you want the system to try 1, 2, 3 or 4 times (this may vary depending on the type of recipients and their ISPs, and you can change this setting at any time).

Q.   How does the system handle bounces?

• Once the bounce hit rate you have set for any campaign is reached the bounce address is automatically removed from the master and sublist(s) by MarketUand is stored in a Quarantine list for your action. Any ‘bad’ email address that has been moved to the Quarantine list will be excluded from your future mailings.

Q.   How do I deal with items in the Quarantine list?

• You can choose to delete all quarantined items or select specific ones only for deletion (if perhaps you want to investigate why certain emails have bounced – typos, for instance, can mean an otherwise bona fide email will bounce).
• You can edit any email address in the Quarantine list in the same way as you edit any other mailing list item. Once edited, pressing the ‘save member’ button will remove the ‘bad’ address from the Quarantine list and reinstate it in its amended version to both your master list and any sub lists in which it previously appeared.
  

Q.   How do I pay?

• You can pay by credit card online or by phone or if you are an existing customer of Line Business Services or soVision we can invoice you.  You can buy a Pay as You Go Plan or a Contract Plan to suit you. See the Prices section of our website for more detailed information.

Q.   What reports are available in MarketU?

• Once you have created and run your campaign there is a flexible range of reports you can run to see how the campaign has gone and to glean useful information.

Q.   What is an ‘unsubscribe’ and what happens when someone unsubscribes?

• UK law requires that all marketing emails you send must allow the recipient to tell you easily if they don’t want to receive emails from you in future (an ‘unsubscribe’). Every email message sent via MarketU will contain an automatic link so recipients can simply click on the link and press send in order to unsubscribe from your marketing list. MarketU handles the rest automatically so when someone unsubscribes, the email list is automatically updated to exclude unsubscribed addresses.

Q.   What is an opt-in or subscription form?

• MarketU enables you to create a simple opt-in section on your website so you can collect email addresses for future campaigns. This is one of the easiest and most effective ways to build your database and boost your potential order book. No programming or technical knowledge is required to set this up but for sophisticated websites we may need to provide some additional coding. Please ask and we will be delighted to advise.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact us, with your help this section will grow over time.