Dynamic Content

CoreMotives offers advanced dynamic content within email messages. This is an extremely powerful and flexible method to communicate with your contacts.

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Using dynamic content, email can be sent to thousands of people and be highly targeted, based on your CRM data. There are three basic types of dynamic content:

1) Adding personalization via CRM fields, like “Hello [firstname]” to the body or subject line for your email.

2) Using CRM fields as the basis of which content should be displayed in your email messages – for example, people from Paris see a picture of the Eiffel Tower and text in French, and those from New York would see a picture of the Statue of Liberty and English text.

3) Send the email from the CRM record owner’s name and email address. Let’s say you are sending 1000 emails, and you do not want them all to come from ”marketing@abc.com” – but rather from the CRM record owner. You may use the “Send from Owner” option to do this.

You may use dynamic content in bulk mailing blasts, or single send tracked emails. Sample templates are below, and if you want CoreMotives to assist in building a dynamic email marketing program with you, please submit a support request and we will work with you to provide a quote for the program.

  • Using CRM data fields for personalization:

Any CRM field on a contact or lead record is available as a merge field in your emails. From the menu bar, all fields are available in the Merge Fields picklist – simply select the field you want.

Additionally, entities related to the lead or contact are also available for use in your email content (many to one relationships). This greatly extends the possibilities to customize your messages with dynamic content. For example, you may include the Account Number of a contact, because the contact has a direct relationship with the parent account – and the Account Number field is present on the parent account.

The type of merge fields available will be based upon the marketing list associated with the mailing. For example, if the marketing list associated with your email is a Lead list, then you will see Lead data fields in the drop down list – if the associated list is Contacts, you will see contacts. Continue reading for information regarding email templates and definitions.

  • Using default values/fall-backs with merge fields:

Let’s say you want to personalize a message with a person’s First Name from CRM, but all the records in CRM do not contain a First Name - in this case you may use default text of “Customer” when that CRM field is empty. To do this, insert a comma within the merge tag and type your default text. For example — Hello [contact.firstname] is the default, but you must add your text to provide a default — Hello [contact.firstname,Customer]

  • Templates and merge fields:

Note that email templates have no relationship to a lead or contact marketing list during the design phase, therefore, neither leads or contact merge fields will be available in the drop down. We advise that you craft your email as a mailing, then save it as a template or definition — keeping in mind that a template designed with Contact merge fields will not work as expected if used with a Lead marketing list. This is because the Leads entity has different field names than does the Contact entity, therefore when the email is sent, the data would not be present and will not appear in the email correctly. You could always create two templates – one based on lead fields, and another based on contact fields. The marketing list type for the mailing would determine which template is appropriate.

Dynamic data is very powerful, and as they say, with great power, comes great responsibility. Remember to send test emails and check that you have not made mistakes, before sending any email blast. Note: Sending tests with the test feature is free.

  • Where to find merge fields within the HTML Content editor:

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  • If-Then-Else Dynamic Content:

One of the most powerful ways to use Dynamic Content is leveraging CRM field data to determine what the recipient should see in their email. In the example below, we show how CRM contacts that have Sally as the sales representative see a picture of Sally, and her personal information, those with James, his information, etc.

Our user guide for writing the dynamic content expressions is available here. Note that you must be comfortable with HTML to use this powerful feature. We recommend this be done by your HTML designer, or web developer.

Sample templates are below, and if you want CoreMotives to assist in building a dynamic email marketing program with you, please submit a support request and we will work with you to provide a quote for the program.

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Our user guide for writing the dynamic content expressions is available here.

A sample dynamic content template is available for you within the template library – find the template here.

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  • Send email from the CRM record owner:

Let’s say you are sending 1000 emails, and you do not want them all to come from ”marketing@abc.com” – but rather from the CRM record owner. You may use the “Send from Owner” option to do this, which is located on the Advanced tab of a Mailing, or Definition. As illustrated below, when the check box is selected, the Sender name and email will dynamically be pulled from the CRM contact or lead record.

You may also use a different reply to address than the Sender Address. For example, you might want all replies to be sent to admin@abc.com.

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  • Testing:

Our dynamic data features are very powerful, and as they say, with great power, comes great responsibility. Remember to send yourself a test and check that you have not made mistakes, before sending any email blast.

CoreMotives will populate your test emails with dynamic content so you can have a preview of what the message will look like. The first record (sorted alphabetically by email address) in the associated marketing list will be the record upon which your test email is based.

Another effective way to test is to create a test marketing list and have your test records updated with the fields contained in your dynamic content. For example, let’s say you are basing dynamic content on the Country field, where USA would receive an English message, and where Germany would receive a German language message. To test, you would include one record in your list with the CRM Country field populated with USA and another record in your list with the Country equalling Germany. Send your email, check that everything is OK, clone your mailing, change to the real marketing list and send.

Another alternative, is to have one member in your test list – send a test with the Country equal to USA, check the results, then change the Country on that same record to Germany, send your test, check the results. As you can see, there are many options for testing – the most important thing is that you are testing before sending.

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