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Tutorial: Conducting an e-mail campaign

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This tutorial demonstrates how to conduct an e-mail campaign.

Learning objectives

You will learn the following tasks:

• How to configure WebSphere Commerce to send out e-mail messages and handle bounce-backs

• How to identify the users and target them in the campaigns

• How to create e-mail templates

• How to create coupons

• How to demonstrate e-mail functionality using a live e-mail server

• How customers receive and apply coupons sent to them through e-mail

Time required

Expect this tutorial to take 1 to 1 1/4 hours to complete.

Audience

This tutorial is intended for business users using WebSphere Commerce.

Prerequisites

• You must have WebSphere Commerce v6.0 installed.

• You must have an SMTP e-mail server available for WebSphere Commerce to talk to. In this tutorial we use an independent software vendor's SMTP server.

  To download it, click http://www.postcastserver.com.

• The server must be started.

• You must have the ConsumerDirect store published.

Example e-mail message:

Lessons in this tutorial

• Create e-mail content
  There are two parts to the content of the e-mail message. The first part reads, "It's our RedHot Winter Clearance - 25% off," and the second part is the actual coupon image. In this section of the tutorial, we will create content for the first one and place it in a Content Spot. Then we will create content for the coupon (an associated discount promotion) and place it in an E-Marketing Spot.

• Create an e-mail template
  We will now create an e-mail template using the content that we created in the previous section.

• Configure e-mail activities
  In this section we will act as the Site Administrator and configure WebSphere Commerce to send out e-mail messages. The Site Administrator usually chooses an off-peak hour to send out e-mail every day. For our purposes, we will configure e-mail to be sent out 10 to 15 minutes from now so we can actually see this process happen. This configuration is usually done once and seldom changed.

• Create and test the e-mail activity
  In this section we will send out the e-mail message, receive it on the e-mail server, and act as a shopper to activate the coupon.

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