The contacts area is where you’ll find everything you need to know about - you guessed it - your contacts. This article will explain all the basics around this area.
About Contacts
If you’ve already read the getting started intro, you’ll already be aware that the contacts area stores all your subscribers’ data. It can store the standard fields:
- Type of contact - if you’ve gone through the set-up, these should already be in place
- Status - are they an individual or a business?
- Title
- First name
- Last name
- Gender
- Date of birth
- Tenure date
- Location (address or select a map point)
- Channel (email, mobile, SMS, telephone) - you can choose which channels should be opted in to which opt-in category
- Recent campaign activity - to see how the customers have responded recently to a campaign
- Self-service login (used for password protected pages and/or loyalty portals)
- Notes (a free-text field for you to add notes about the contact - perhaps recent feedback you’ve had from them)
Custom fields
But what if you want to store more information, such as their favourite brand or what they last bought from you? That’s where custom fields come in, allowing you to hold any additional data you need. They can store information using dates, numbers, drop down lists, checkbox lists, text fields and more. This can be particularly useful for creating customer surveys or subscribe pages.
About Groups
Once your contacts are ready, you’ll need to organise them into groups so that you can start sending messages. There are various group types you can create, listed below. Typically, we would advise you to use a rule group, due to its dynamic behaviour and its ability to update without your input. However, what group you use all depends on who you want to target.
List groups
A list group is a static list of contacts. List groups are limited to 500 contacts. You’ll need to manually remove/add contacts. Use this group type if you want to communicate with a specific set of contacts that doesn’t change often. For example, if you want to communicate with an internal team of people (e.g. for testing purposes) a list group would be ideal.
Rule groups
As the name suggests, a rule group is created for targeting particular contacts based on the rules that you set. Rules can be based on any bit of information you have on your contacts, including custom fields. You can keep it simple and create a group for general marketing comms, such as subscribed contacts. Or you can create more targeted groups for tailored campaigns, such as: anyone interested in a particular topic, those who engaged with your last campaign, people with a high value score in a particular persona, and so on. The options are endless.
As a bonus, a rule group is automatically updated on a daily basis, saving you time while ensuring that any contacts who meet the criteria are included in the group.
Map groups
If you want to target contacts based on their location, you should create a map group. You can draw the area you want to target on a map. This group is updated daily, meaning you don’t need to manually update this.
Combined groups
Sometimes one group on its own isn’t enough, which is where combined groups come in handy. Combined groups allow you to group together contacts from two or more groups. Alternatively, you can choose to exclude a group from another group. For instance, you may want to target your subscribers to encourage them to book, but you want to exclude customers that have an upcoming booking.
Group builder
The group builder is a visual tool that allows you to see how many contacts are within a group. You can add up to three groups, allowing you to see the overlap of contacts in a combination of groups. You can then create a combined group, simply by selecting the combinations you want.
Onto the next step
Now that you understand the basics about contacts, it’s time to move on to other areas in Horizon:
For Loyalty customers, check out:
If you want to advance your contacts knowledge, head over to the Contacts section. Not only will you dig deeper into the contacts area, but you’ll learn how to analyse your contact data.