Marketing List Generator (MLG)
Building Marketing Lists is Easy with the Marketing List Generator
Improve your marketing efforts by using the Marketing List Generator. The Marketing List Generator identifies contacts who fit defined marketing criteria. For example, the MLG can identify contacts who live in a certain zip code but have never bought a service agreement. Those contacts appear on lists which are then used for marketing purposes like direct mail and telemarketing.
As a quick overview, marketing lists are created through queries (searches) of your contacts and/or by sales activity. These queries can be very simple or somewhat complex, depending on the degree to which the contacts are filtered. The Marketing List Generator is quite powerful because of it’s ability to conduct multiple separate queries, adding the results of each search to the results list. The results can then be sorted and duplicates deleted as necessary. Finally, the results can be exported for use in other common programs (like the mail merge function in Microsoft Word®) in order to create marketing letters, mailing labels, and more.
Marketing List Generator Access
- From the main menu, click Tools | Marketing List Generator.
The Marketing List Generator. It’s three main components are the Contact Filter, the Sales Activity Filter, and the Results List.
Components
The Marketing List Generator consists of three principle components:
- The Contact Filter – Used to search contacts.
- The Sales Activity Filter – Used to search sales activities.
- The Results List – Used to display and manage search results.
Menu Button Commands
The following commands are available from the Menu button. These same commands also appear in a pop-up menu, conveniently opened by right-clicking anywhere in the MLG.
- Replace Query – Performs a search based on the settings in the Contacts and/or Sales Activity filters. The output is sent to the Results List. Any pre-existing data in the Results List will be replaced with the new data.
- Append Query – Performs a search based on the settings in the Contacts and/or Sales Activity filters. The output is added to any pre-existing data in the Results List.
- Clear Query – Erases all queries (search definitions) setup in both the Contacts Filter and the Sales Activity Filter.
- Select All – Selects all records in the Results List.
- Export List – Exports the contents of the list to an ASCII text file. You will be offered a chance to select a delimiter.
- Clear List <All> – Removes all records from the Results List.
- Clear List <Selected> – Removes the selected (highlighted) records from the Results List.
- Edit Contact – Opens the record on which focus is set. The focus indicator is a right-pointing triangle in the first column of the Results List. Focus is automatically set to whatever record is right-clicked, making it easy to open a record by right-clicking on it and selecting Edit Contact from the pop-up menu.
- Add Log Entry – Adds an identical note to the Contact Log every selected contact in the Results List. This is useful for example, when attaching a note to your entire marketing list at once. Imagine that a marketing letter has been to a list of contacts. To document this activity, use the “Add Log Entry” command to create a note in each of the recipient’s Contact Log. This note might read “Mailed Direct Mail Letter #1234 Via First Class Mail”. The date, time, and Total Office Manager user who created the entry is automatically added to the note.
- Remove Duplicates – Removes any duplicate records from the Results List.
- Form Preferences – Used to select which fields are displayed in the Results List. Please note that it also controls which fields are exported. Only the fields which appear in the Results List are included when exporting data. Place a tick in the checkbox of each field to appear in the Results List, and click the “Apply” button when finished.
Step-by-Step
- Setup the Contact Filter as applicable.
- Select a Field.
- Select a Condition (Equal, Not Equal, Like, Starts With, Ends With, >=, <=, Between).
- Type an entry in the “Value 1” field as applicable (it may be alpha or numeric, depending on the field selected).
- Type an entry in the “Value 2” field as applicable (it may be alpha or numeric, depending on the field selected). In many instances the “Value 2” field is not required.
- Select “And/Or” if applicable to the query. The “And” selection means the search results must meet the conditions of that query AND the conditions of the query directly above it (if any exist). The “Or” selection means the search results must meet the conditions of that query Or the conditions of the query directly above it (if any exist). If only one query is in a filter, the “And/Or” field does nothing.
- Setup the Sales Activity Filter as applicable.
- Select an Item.
- Select a Condition (Purchased or Not-Purchased).
- Enter a “From Date” if applicable to the query.
- Enter a “To Date” if applicable to the query.
- Select “And/Or” if applicable to the query. The “And” selection means the search results must meet the conditions of that query AND the conditions of the query directly above it (if any exist). The “Or” selection means the search results must meet the conditions of that query Or the conditions of the query directly above it (if any exist). If only one query is in a filter, the “And/Or” field does nothing.
- Use the “Replace Query” command to run the search. The output of the search will appear in the Results List.
- If necessary, a completely different query can be run, having it’s output added to the results of any previous queries. To do this, setup the new query criteria and use the “Append Query” command (not the “Replace Query” command) so the output will be added to the Results List without loosing it’s existing content.
- You may now delete one or more records from your list as needed. To do this, highlight one or more records, right click, and select Clear List <selected>. This action does NOT delete anything from Total Office Manager.
- Attach a note to your list as needed. If you are doing a direct mail campaign, we recommend that you indicate this with a note to each of the contacts you will be mailing to.
- Export your list. Total Office Manager allows you to export as a tab delimited file or an MS Excel® file. You may use the list as a call list or a direct mail list. Please see related topics below for information on performing a mail merge.
Tips
- The contact list you have built can be sorted. This can be handy when you need to review your list and remove unwanted contacts.
- If the contact has been added to your No Call List, they will NEVER appear in your list. In other words, if you have checked the No Marketing check box in the customer\job form, that contact will not be included in any search.
- Sorting the contact list has no affect on how the list is exported. The list will always be exported in alpha/numeric order using the first field of each record.
- It is possible to build a list that contains duplicated records. Use the Remove Duplicates prior to exporting.
- Although this feature was designed primarily for marketing purposes, it can be handy for performing more advanced searches (searches the Advanced Search feature can’t handle).
Related Content
Customer:Job Form – Overview
How to do a Mail Merge
This may be helpful if you wish to use Microsoft Word® to create mailing labels or merge your Marketing List into a letter or some other form of document.
