Do you find yourself sending the same email to a series of individual contacts over time? Then this tip offers an important time-saver!

Voodoo Business Builder accounts offer three ways to send your campaigns: Quick Send, Send Email, and Funnels.  Each option has certain benefits. In this QuickTip, we'll take a peek at all three sending options, then zero in on the best ways to send an email to one contact at a time: Quick Send and Funnels.

Voodoo QuickTip #809: How and when to use Funnels to Send to new contacts

In a previous QuickTip blog post, When to Use Quick Sends, Campaigns and Funnels, we spoke about the difference between each type of email send:

	Quick Send: This is a great tool to reach new contacts and build your contact lists every day. Use this to reach out quickly to one person or a small group and add them to a Contact List at the same time.
	Send Email: Lets you send a single-stage personalized campaign (email template) to any group with a few simple clicks. Choose automated notifications for when emails get opened and videos get viewed, plus auto-response emails to follow-up automatically.  (From the Send Email page, launch the Campaign Wizard to be guided step-by-step through the process.)
	Funnels & Forms: Here's where you'll find the real magic of Voodoo for automated and multi-stage outreach. This area is full of features for power users, allowing you to create drip marketing campaigns, capture forms and automated triggers.

You can configure each feature to meet your needs in various ways. It often seems best to use the Quick Send feature when sending a one-off email to a contact. But if you find yourself sending the same email to a series of individuals, it will be more convenient and effective to utilize a Funnel.  

Examples:

You just met two people at a one-time networking event, and you want to send them one-off email.  We recommended using Quick Send.

You often meet people at networking events or via referrals from colleagues and friends. You find yourself sending the same introductory email and video over and over again. You need a perpetual introductory campaign — one where you can keep adding new contacts to a list over time and automatically sending your introductory eVideo. ) Time to set up a Funnel.  Set the wait time to “0” so anytime a contact is added, they will immediately get the email you've selected (this is a “once and done” option). 

Advantages of a Funnel:  

Automated (Multiple) Emails
The most obvious advantage to a funnel is that you can set up multiple emails to "drip" to your contacts automatically. This is an easy way to continuously reach out to each new contact  over time.

Contact Forms
Every Funnel has a Contact Form tab. The Contact Form you create here can be used and accessed anywhere to feed new contacts directly into a funnel for drip marketing and nurturing. Contact Forms let salespeople add contacts to specific funnel lists quickly and on the go…from any web-enabled device. No need to log into Voodoo to add new contacts to a list. Simply open a bookmarked Contact Form, fill out the fields and Submit. You can easily drop contacts into your funnels, one contact at a time, automatically triggering your introductory eVideo campaign...or anything else you'd like to send! 

To learn about setting up a contact form for your funnel check out our Quick Tips blog post: Turbo-charge your Marketing with Contact Forms.

Comprehensive Reports
If you are using a Quick Send, the reports are individual for each Quick Send. In order to get all the stats, you would have to view each Quick Send report individually. 

But when using Funnels, you get a detailed, aggregated view in My Reports.  Funnel statistics show all the contacts your funnel emails are sent to in one aggregated view. It also shows how each contact responds to each email in a funnel sequence (opened, clicked, watched video).

Statistics Snapshot — overall stats for each email in the funnel: 



Statistics Details — how each contact responded to each email in the funnel:



For more information on Funnels and Forms be sure to check out Forms and Funnels and Success Automation 101.

Both Quick Sends and Funnels offer Automated Action Alerts, so you can be notified when a contact opens an email, clicks a link, views a video or fills out a survey. To learn more about these alerts visit our blog post, Automated Action Alerts. 

Business Builder users, log into your Voodoo account and take a closer look at Funnels. And eVideo Launcher users, well...Funnels are yet another reason to upgrade to a full-featured version of Voodoo.  

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