Objective:
In this How-To, we will continue our New Customer Onboarding program automation by creating our Audience and Schedule. We will explore the following topics:
- How to create a direct mail postcard from scratch within Core iQ
For this How-To article, we will be creating the next communication within our New Customer Onboarding program. This tutorial assumes that you are following our New Customer Onboarding track, so if you get confused, take a look at the first article in our tutorial.
Sending a One Year Anniversary postcard can be a nice way to let a customer know that you care. Today, we will be using a pre-made direct mail postcard template in Core iQ to create this anniversary card. This One Year Anniversary card will be placed into our New Customer Onboarding schedule in the next tutorial.
Creating a Custom Postcard
We will start our process by creating a new template within Core iQ by going to the Communications Template area within the Communications dropdown menu. This time, we will be using a pre-made template to create our communication. Core iQ allows you to sort templates using the dropdown lists at the top of this page, making it easier to find Postcards, Letters, and Emails relating to a variety of occasions. In this case, we will want to set the Design Category to “Event” and the Template Type to “Direct Mail Postcards”. We have a few templates relating to our customer’s one year Bank anniversary, so let’s pick one of these. If you want to create your own graphic for the front of your postcard, you can still follow these steps, but you will need to upload a graphic to the Front area of the postcard builder.
Once you have chosen your postcard, you will be brought to the Settings area for our communication. Here we can set the name of the template to something like “Customer Anniversary Postcard” and then we can set the area labeled Customer Receives No More Than Once Within to “N/A”. Just like the last template, we need to remember that this template should only be used in the connected schedule, as we will control the frequency at the schedule level only. We will leave the Compliance section set to “No” for the moment, as we are still working on our postcard and we don’t want to mark it as Active quite yet.
Now we are ready to move on to editing the postcard itself. We can skip the Electronic Alternative area for this project, since we just want to send out physical versions of this communications. Regularly we would be able to use this area to set a priority for an email version of this template in order to save money if a customer had an email on file. However, since this is an anniversary communication for a special occasion, we will opt to make our customers feel extra special by sending them a physical direct mail postcard. We don’t need to edit the Front of our postcard, as we have already chosen a template for that, so let’s navigate to the Back.
Here, we can use the Core iQ template editor to place a One Year Anniversary message for our customer to receive on their special day. Just like the last template, you will notice that there are two highlighted areas on this interface, which are outlined in green. While you can obviously add your own copy to this area, we have included an example version in this tutorial for you to use if you want.
Happy One Year Anniversary!
Thank you so much for continuing to be a part of the [Bank_Name] family and letting us help you with your financial needs. We’re so happy you chose us!
As always, if there is anything you need please don’t hesitate to reach out. You can contact me via email at [Banker_Email_Address] or by phone at [Banker_Contact_Phone].
Here’s to many more years!
Please do not hesitate to contact us, should you have any questions. We will contact you in the very near future to ensure you are completely satisfied with the services you have received thus far.
Sincerely,
[Banker_Full_Name]
[Banker_Title]
[Bank_Name]
Why use merge fields in this template?
I want to highlight one of the great features of Core iQ which can be found in the merge fields within this template. Since each of our new customers will be assigned a Banker within our financial institution, we want this communication to be a bit more personalized. Using merge fields within this postcard template allows us to do just that. Based on the core data that we import nightly into Core iQ, we are able to track a variety of information, including the assigned banker for each of your customers. We can then use that data to dynamically add in the name, email address, phone number, and title for each of your bankers once a communication is sent on their behalf. This postcard will be completely customized each time it is sent out, using the relevant banker’s information for all the Banker merge fields. What a great way to make a postcard seem more relevant and personalized to the person receiving it!
Finalizing & Approving our Template
Once you are happy with what you have placed on the back of the postcard, you can click the Save & Preview button to be taken to a digital preview of your postcard. Core iQ will dynamically populate all of the relevant merge fields with information so that you can see an example of what the postcard will look like once it is sent. We highly recommend downloading a PDF version of this proof using the Proofs & Review button of the left. This will give you the best view of your direct mail piece, and is perfect for sending to others for review.
After you have fully reviewed the template and made any additional edits, go ahead and have someone with the Compliance role mark the template as Active in the Settings area. This will allow us to move on to creating our final communication piece and our automated schedule, which we will tie the template to. After you are done with this template, it’s time to create a Customer Satisfaction Survey.