MARKETING - Mailsender Campaigns

In Boatshed, we have a powerful advantage over our competitors whereby we can target key profiled customers who are actively showing interest in certain boats. We always need a reason to email customers, this may be a new boat just listed and live on the website, a decent price reduction or maybe something significant has changed on the boat such as a new engine or new set of sails.

The campaign is produced using a software called Mailsender which is linked to the Boatshed Dashboard.  If you do not have a Mailsender Account please contact support who will be able to set this up for you. We create a list of customers from the dashboard and then create the email in Mailsender, the two are then merged to create the campaign.

HOW TO PRODUCE A CAMPAIGN

Creating the List of Customers:

The first stage of producing your campaign is to create a list of customers who will receive the email.  You only want to send an email to customers who are interested in the type of boat you are marketing.  To do this you need to find boats that are similar to the boat you are marketing, take a look at the Boatshed website and make a note of the reference numbers of all the similar boats.  We look for around 10-15 boats that are similar to the one we are sending the campaign for

Top Tips:

• Choose boats that are similar to the boat you would like the campaign for
• Use the search criteria on the customer facing website to search for boats
• You can choose boats from all Boatshed Offices 
• The length should be within 1m +/- of the boat the campaign is for
• The price should be within £10k +/- of the boat the campaign is for (this can be higher if it's a high value boat) 
• Construction, keel type, age and fuel type (power boats) can also be taken into consideration

Remember we do not want to spam our customers so we should only be sending campaigns to people who would be interested in the type of boat we are marketing. 

Once you have the list of reference numbers (similar boats) you need to add these into the dashboard.

• Find the boat you are creating the campaign for
• Click on Create Mailshot (under the main photo on the overview page)
• Enter a name for the list (use the following Boat Name - Boat Make - Campaign description ie New to the Market)
• Enter your list of reference numbers (similar boats) one number per line
• Choose the number of months (eg 3 months)
• Choose the number of views (eg 5 views)
• Click 'Create Customer List'
• This will produce a list of customers that have viewed all of the boats you have entered (reference numbers) 5 times in the last 3 months
• You can scan over the list of customers to see if there any you need to delete
• You may only end up with a list of 100 customers, however remember these are all customers who are interested in a boat similar to the one you are marketing - we do not spam customers!
• Click on 'Import this List Into Mailsender'
• It will take a few minutes for the list to show in Mailsender

Creating the Campaign:

Log onto Mailsender, if you don't already have a login then please contact HQ (support@boatshedsupport.com) to set this up for you.

It is much easier to set up a template for yourself so you can use it each time you want to send a campaign (HQ can set this up for you)

• Click on the campaigns tab 
• Under recent drafts find the campaign template you want to use (you may need to click on see all drafts)
• On the right hand side of the screen click on the 3 dots and choose COPY

• Click on the new draft to start editing
• Click on the pencil to edit the campaign name (this is the name we see in Mailsender, this is not visible to the recipient)
• Click on edit to change the subject name (this is the subject heading in the email, the one the customer will see)
• If you want to change who the email is from you can click on edit.
• Click on select recipients and tick the box relevant to your campaign (click HERE to see how to produce the
• Click SAVE

Next step is to write the content of your email.

• Click on edit campaign on the right hand side of the screen.

• Click in the box to start typing your message
• A toolbox will appear so you can change the font style, size. colour etc..
• You can also enter a title of the email (in bigger font at the top)
• Once you have completed your content, click save & next in the top right hand side of the screen

• Before sending the campaign it's always best to send a test email to ensure everything is correct and any links are working correctly
• Click on send a test
• Select the person to send it to or type in a new email address

• If everything is correct click on prepare to send
• You can either send the email immediately or you can schedule a date and time to send it

• It will ask you to review and confirm
• Click continue to payment

• This will display the final page before sending the email
• Check the details and then click send campaign now

Top Tips:

• Include photos of the boat and add links so when customers click on the photo they are taken to your website listing
• Don't write too much, use short paragraphs or bullet points
• Include your contact details
• Include a link to the website listing
• Use the footer area to promote other areas of Boatshed eg. Boatbid, Refer a Boat etc..

In Mailsender you have the ability to see how many customers have opened the email and how many people have clicked on the links in your email.  It is useful to look back at this to see how effective your campaigns have been.

The cost to send a campaign is £5.00 plus £0.01 per customer you are sending the campaign to.  If you are sending a campaign to 100 customers the cost would be £6.00.

EXAMPLES OF MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

New to the Market Campaign

Price Reduction Campaign