A campaign for existing customers

reaches out to your past customers the same way as to new companies: every customer gets their own letter, from your mailbox, and the postscript of the first letter says that you have worked together before. For this you need a file from your own system, with one and one email address per row. In the example, a company that sells and services coffee machines offers its new annual maintenance plan to the offices that bought a machine from it in recent years but have no maintenance contract.

This is for you if…

you want to write to your past customers about a new product, a new service or a product they have not ordered for a long time;
your customers are in an invoicing software, a CRM or a spreadsheet, with company email addresses;
you want to send every customer their own letter, from your own mailbox.

What will be ready at the end

A campaign with the customers you chose, with Existing customers as the audience, and letters about what you want to tell them, with the postscript of the first letter saying that you have worked together before. You know who was left out of the loading and why, the campaign is running, and every reply becomes a task.

Six steps

Each step comes with the sentence you can copy into Apex, and what Apex does with it.

Who to reach out to
A campaign has one reason to write: one offer that is relevant to every customer in it. So do not pick all your customers, only those for whom the same letter works: in the example, those who bought a machine but have no maintenance contract. If you have two offers, or your customers read in different languages, that makes two campaigns. The selection comes from your own system: does not see your orders and invoices. Leave out the customers your colleagues look after in person, or add them as : the loading skips them anyway.
Where: your own invoicing software or CRM
Ask ApexApex tells you
We'd like to write to our past customers. How do we choose who goes into one campaign?
The file
Once you know who you are writing to, you need a file of the chosen customers: CSV or TXT, one and one email address per row, separated by a comma, semicolon or tab, at most 20,000 rows and 10 MB. The first column is the company's website or the part of the company email address after the @, the second is the email address; Apex does not read any further columns, and a header row, “www” or “https://” do no harm. One company has one row: if a domain appears twice, only the first row counts. The email address in the file becomes the company's address in the campaign, so give the address of the person who decides on the purchase, not the one you send invoices to. If a customer writes from a free email service but has a website, the website goes into the first column. Save an Excel spreadsheet as CSV. If you only have company names and no addresses, the A campaign from your own company list guide helps.
Where: your own invoicing software or CRM; the exported spreadsheet as CSV
Ask ApexApex tells you
In what form should I send our past customers' email addresses so you can load them into a campaign?
The campaign, with a letter for customers
Alongside the file, you need a campaign. Tell Apex that the recipients are your existing customers: the campaign's audience then becomes Existing customers, and the postscript of the first letter says that you have worked together before. For the letter, say why you are writing now: what is new, what they bought before, and what you are asking of them (a call, a request for a quote). If you only set the audience after the first letter, ask Apex to rewrite the first letter, because the earlier postscript stays until then. With the Send to myself button, you receive the letter the way your customer would, postscript included.
Where: Customer acquisition › Campaigns, the campaign's Letter sequence section; the Send to myself button on the letter
Ask ApexApex does it
Make a campaign for our past customers who have no maintenance contract. They know us, write to them about our new annual maintenance plan.
The loading
When the campaign and the letters are ready, the file comes next. Apex puts an upload card into the conversation; the file is deleted after processing, and its rows do not go into the conversation. After reading it, Apex tells you how many pairs are valid, how many are badly formatted, have a faulty address or are duplicates, and in how many rows a free email service (for example gmail.com) stands instead of the company's website. After your approval, the loading runs in the background: for every address, Apex checks whether the address's domain accepts mail, and skips protected customers, excluded addresses and companies already in another campaign. If it is only a few customers, you do not even need a file: you can type up to 200 domain and address pairs into the conversation.
Where: the conversation with Apex; the upload card, then the approval button in the conversation
Ask ApexApex does it, with your approval
I'd like to load our past customers' email addresses into the Maintenance plan campaign.
Above the approval button: how many contacts go into which campaign, and how many pairs are valid.
The ones left out
When the loading is done, a summary stays in the conversation: how many companies went in, how many were left out, the Left out rows with the reasons, and a CSV download. The reason Already in a campaign means that the customer is already in another of your campaigns, for example because a search found it. If its turn has not come there yet, Apex can move it into this campaign. The row means the company is among the Excluded domains, for example as a protected customer or because it unsubscribed. If you do want to write to a protected customer from a campaign, check the reason on the Excluded domains page, restore it and load it again; leave anyone who unsubscribed excluded. The No mail server (MX) row is usually an old address: find a new one and send it to Apex.
Where: the conversation with Apex, the loading summary (Left out, Download CSV); Customer acquisition › Excluded domains
Ask ApexApex does it, with your approval
Move the Already in a campaign rows into this campaign.
Two approval buttons: releasing them from the other campaign, then the loading.
Launch and the replies
Finally, the campaign starts. Apex checks every letter first and only starts with your approval; the letters go out during the working hours of the mailbox. Apex handles the replies the same way as for any campaign: every human reply stops the campaign for that customer, interest, questions and rejections become tasks on the Tasks page, and Apex carries out unsubscribes. So in the end, you only deal with the people who replied. If the customer should continue in the campaign after replying, ask Apex to let them.
Where: Customer acquisition › Campaigns; Mail › Incoming mail; the Tasks page
Ask ApexApex does it, with your approval
Start the Maintenance plan campaign.

What it costs

An example of the monthly fee. Plans are personal, per month, plus VAT.

Loading your own customers does not use the per company: that only applies to companies found by a search. 's work (checking the file, writing the campaign and the letters, your questions) comes out of the allowance; the allowance has a 5-hour part and a weekly part, and both refill on their own. You can send campaign letters from the Start plan (€99) upwards, per month, plus VAT.

Frequently asked questions

What most people ask in this situation.

Can Apex see who has not ordered for a long time?

No: does not see your orders and invoices; you can pick those customers out in your own system. Apex can show you the companies you have marked as Won in Trendizz without a file, and put them into a campaign on request.

Can I write to a protected customer?

Not from a campaign; Protect or reach out? describes this. You can reply to them and write to them by hand at any time.

What if I have more than 20,000 customers?

Split the file into several parts and load them one after the other; only one loading runs into a campaign at a time.

Pitfalls

What most people run into, and how to avoid it.

Customers and new companies in one file

A campaign has one audience. If the file also has new companies, you need two campaigns, because the two letters say different things.

Loading into a running campaign

If the campaign is running, the loaded customers get a letter straight away during the working hours; warns you about this above the . If you want to review the letters first, load them into a campaign that has not been started yet.

Several contacts at one company

A company can have one email address in the campaign; if the file has several rows with the same , only the first one goes in, so put the decision-maker's row first.

Basics for this situation

If you want to look behind a step.

Set it up with Apex.

Tell Apex how many of you there are and how you work. Apex tells you which guide fits and, wherever it can, sets things up with your approval.

Free account, no card details · monthly fee, no minimum term

A campaign for existing customers

Six steps

Who to reach out to

The file

The campaign, with a letter for customers

The loading

The ones left out

Launch and the replies