Hello tugnuggets, vol. 1, issue 2 September 1, 2000
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In this issue of Tugnuggets we are pleased to announce the addition of a new Addressbook to the line-up of Tuglet applications.  We also take another look at the EmailForms multi-merging feature and how it can be used to save time and increase effectiveness of bulk email.
Tuglet Tip: New Addressbook - Managing your mailing list just got easier.
Are you Multi-merging? - Take a closer look at EmailForms' multi-merge feature?
Customer Success Story - Tell us how you are using Tuglet.
Manage your mailing list with TN Addressbook
Do you have a mailing list for product announcements and newsletters? Tuglet is pleased to announce the addition of an Addressbook to it's service to make using EmailForms even easier?  Use the Tuglet Addressbook to help you quickly and easily send personalized emailforms to your important contacts without having to continually upload your data or remember individual email addresses.  

Every time you send a message via EmailForms you can now drop that contact information into the Addressbook for quick access next time you need it and creating mailing list groups is as easy as a few mouse clicks.  Start using Addressbook today.


Are your Multi-Merging?
by Nissim Salinas
www.balthazargroup.com

What is Multi-Merge?

Multi-merge is a technique that allows you to personalize bulk email, and has been around since the early days of word processing. To do a multi-merge you need two things: a form document and a data document. The form document contains the generic text that will be repeated in each email, and placeholders for the text that varies with each email. The data document contains the information that will change with each email. The data document can be created from an external data source, such as a spreadsheet or database, or the data can be drawn directly from your Tuglet Addressbook.  

When the mail merge process is run, each item from the data document is placed in the form document to produce an individual letter. See example below:



The benefits of multi-merging are:

  1. Multi-merging allows you to personalize your bulk email.
  2. Keeping the data in a separate file puts an end to the tedious process of typing the unique data for each letter. Once you have a list with the data, you never have to retype it again.
  3. The multi-merge process is automatic - so the effort to send 10 or 1000 personalized email messages is the same.

How can EmailForms multi-merge make me more effective?

Here are only a few of the many possible uses for multi-merge:
  1. You have a monthly newsletter, like this one, and want to personalize it for each recipient.  Create a newsletter EmailForm with a merge field for <first name> in the salutation.  Merge with you mailing list.
  2. Your company has a new product and you would like to send your existing customer base a product announcement. Create an EmailForm with fields for recipient's <name> and <last product purchased>; create a data file that has both fields for each customer; embed a picture of your product in the form; attach a document with the product description to the form, and merge with your customer mailing list.
  3. You are a project manager and you would like to give new assignments to project team members. Create an EmailForm with the team members' name, assignment, and assignment due date; create a data file that has the same fields and a field for the team members' email address, and multi-merge away.

Email can be a powerful marketing tool, so start using multi-merge to personalize your bulk email communications and increase the effectiveness of your email campaigns.

Customer Success Stories

Your chance to show us how creative you can be.

We get lots of feedback from you about how you're using our services and about features you'd like to see us add, which we appreciate.  This has prompted us to create a forum in Tugnuggets for publishing some of your feedback and successes.  Future versions of Tugnuggets will dedicate space to that purpose.  We believe that seeing how others are using EmailForms to help them with their business will prove a useful resource to all Tuglet users.

In order to have your story included in a future issue of Tugnuggets please send us a "write up" at info@tuglet.com.  Please keep it to less than 300 words.  Also, please continue to send us your enhancement suggestions in the usual way.  We will credit you in this section as we implement those suggestions in our service.  We look forward to hearing from you.