Recently, we sent out an email blast to our clients because we found ourselves repeating the same schpiel (as I call it) over and over. I’m sure you’ve experience the same thing like when a client calls to ask “does my insurance cover a rental car” or “will my insurance extend to a friend driving my car?” For me, it was explaining to parents why their adult child should have their own policy when they move out of the house after graduation or marriage. It’s during calls like this that I might also learn that the car has been transferred to their adult child’s name – you get the point. These life events happen all the time, and we can’t possibly know when they happen (unless you have that crystal ball I hear about). So, we decided that it was time to educate and the best way to do that, we have found, is through an email blast right from HawkSoft using the Batch Email.
Here is what we did:
- We did get some advice here from our web guy on the best way to structure a blog to make Google happy. If you haven’t written one before, don’t get hung up on the details – it’s more important just to get the message out.
- An opening message
- Link to the blog
- After you write the blog and publish it on your website the URL can be copied and inserted into the template as a hyperlink. Type the word that you want to hyperlink and click Insert->Hyperlink and paste the URL.
- Inserted a list of current drivers
- Select the drivers (secured) for privacy
- Inserted a list of their autos
- Inserted their liability limit
- The limit does not print in thousands so you’ll need to let them know it’s in thousands
- Listed questions to help them determine if they have an uninsured driver
- A link to my calendar to set up a phone appointment
- If you don’t have one – it pretty slick and pretty inexpensive. I use You Can Book Me (youcanbook.me) another is Calendly.com. You control what times and days they can schedule.
- A chart to show illustrate who is insured and when
- Staff news
- All active auto
- One policy per email
- Primary email address
If you need instructions on setting up an email template, in HawkSoft CMS go to Help->Training Guides and search for “Email Templates.” Here are a few other tips about how we created the template and ran the batch email.
ADDING YOUR LOGO TO AN EMAIL TEMPLATE
- Import your logo to your website’s library of pictures
- Once the picture is on your website, copy the hyperlink
- In your email template in HawkSoft, click Insert ->Image
- Paste the Image URL into the field box (if it doesn’t work – try removing the ‘s’ from https)
HOW TO HYPERLINK TEXT
In the email you can hyperlink any text which allows the reader to simply click on the words to launch them to a website.
- Highlight the word or words you would like to be hyperlinked
- Click Insert->Hyperlink
- Paste the URL of the website that you wish to link to (e.g. your blog article)
- In the Hyperlink, you are able to indicate if it is https or http – just make sure it matches to the URL being used.
Once the email is done to your liking, it’s time to run the report. We were going to send the email just to clients with young adults, but changed our mind, and sent it out to all clients with an auto policy. We then did another email sending it to prospects – to show we are an agency that keeps our clients informed (something they are likely not getting now). One more reason we should be their agent!
RUN A REPORT AND SET UP THE BATCH EMAIL
- Run a report of the contacts that you would like to receive the email blast. Go to Reports->Advance Reports->New Report. We ran a report for Auto/Client (at least one policy must match).
- Filter #1 – all active
- Report layout: Last, Preferred/Preferred2, Primary Email, and any other data that you might want to see on the report
- Once the report is run, you will need to remove all the people without an email address (you may choose to send out a mailing with similar information to those folks)
- To remove those without emails – click the header Cl 1st Em – and it will sort. Highlight all those with emails and right click and choose New Report from Selected Entries (this now made a report with only those names with email addresses.
- To start the email – click File->Send Email
- Choose the email template from the drop down menu
- Select which items to email: we used All Items
- We clicked on Create log entry on each client emailed (this is our E & O proof)
- We also clicked on Attach a copy of the Email to each client
- If this is an email that you would like to follow-up on, there is an option to set up an suspense
- Click OK
- The email will display. If you want to Request Read Receipt, click that option
- The next pop up box is helpful – we recommend doing a test email before sending to all users.
- Make sure you select: One Per Policy
- After verifying that your test email looks correct, click Start to begin the batch email process
NOTE ON SETTING UP BATCH EMAIL PER USER
The user who will send the batch email needs to be set up under their user profile. Call HawkSoft for assistance if you haven’t done this before. On the Batch Email settings page for the user, take note of the Advanced Batch Email Settings. Make sure it shows 1 Emails per minute to avoid being black listed. We’ve sent out emails this way many times and have had no issues, but, as the message indicates you may want to check with your provider first.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSIONI hope this has been informative and takes the scariness out of sending out a batch email; especially if you haven’t done it before. When we hit on a hot topic that could benefit the masses, we find as many ways as possible to get the word out and a batch email is a great tool for this goal.
Good luck with your next writing project, and I hope you’ve been inspired to try the batch email option in HawkSoft. I would be happy to assist if you need help – just email me at pat@selectinsservice.com and take a look at our latest blog for more inspiration.
Pat Lamb, CIC
Select Insurance Services Agency, Inc.
North Royalton, OH
HawkSoft User since 2007
