WebFortis Roadshow 2012

The Webfortis Roadshow is ideal for customers, partners and prospective users with responsibilities for sales, marketing, customer service, IT and corporate leadership.

Join CoreMotives at the Webfortis Roadshow in California-

• January 17 San Francisco
• January 18^th Mountain View
• January 27^th Irvine

Come discover these must have Microsoft Dynamics CRM add-ons to get the most out of your CRM system.

Meet one on one with Rhett Thompson, co-founder of CoreMotives, an email marketing and marketing automation solution for Dynamics CRM.

“Email marketing has become a necessity of any businesses marketing mix. Having it directly integrated with Microsoft Dynamics CRM enables tracking of emails down to the contact, but continues by telling the whole story, beyond the click, enabling marketing and sales to be able to offer the right product, at the right place, at the right time,” said Rhett Thompson, Cofounder of CoreMotives. “These presentations will show how email marketing, enhanced with lead scoring, web page tracking, web forms and social media, enable you to do it faster than your competition and put you ahead.”

List of presenters:

• Stefan Burak, CWR Mobility
• Ernie Pyle, Scribe
• Mark Nimnicht, Zap Technology

Schedule

In -Person Dynamics CRM Training Program for you and your staff.

Lunch and Learn

• 9:30 AM -10:00 AM Registration
• 10:00 AM -12:30 PM Presentations
• 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM Networking Lunch

Training Program

• 1:30 PM – 4:30 PM Dynamics CRM Training

Hope to see you there!

eXtremeCRM 2012 Berlin- Join Us!

Check out some of our New Features!

Star Ratings

Feedback made easy.

Find out how your customers rate you with our new Star Rating feature! You can now add a star rating as a field type to any web form to capture a rating between 1 and 3, 1 and 5, or 1 and 10. We offer many different sizes and styles of stars to fit your design. Learn more.

Personalize Webforms

Show your Style.

With our new web form personalization tools you can make your forms and surveys fit your design. You are now able to add your logo or an image to your web forms. You can also customize the background color, fonts, borders and more. Learn More.

Mailgun

One Click. Send.

Now you can send a “one-off” tracked email to a marketing list, lead or contact from any editor you choose with our new Mailgun feature! This allows you to send from Outlook or Gmail and still have all of your data tracked in your CRM database. Learn more.

CAPTCHA

Slide. Submit.

Frustrated with CAPTCHAs that make you type in two words you can barely read? Us too, so we created a slider CAPTCHA! You simply drag it from left to right to unlock the web form allowing you to submit. You can add it to your web forms to limit SPAM and to make sure an actual person is filling out the form. How simple it that? Learn more.

Email Marketing Subscription Center

Easily Build Your List

With our Subscription Center instead of your recipient clicking unsubscribe and globally unsubscribing themselves to all your lists, let them decide what lists they want to be on. The Subscription Center page can be customized to fit your brand and allows you to choose which lists can be viewed. Learn more.

Our Users’ Voice

We are constantly looking for ways to enhance your user experience and invite you to submit your feature requests in our User Voice form. Go to http://coremotivestraining.com/contact-us/feature-request/to submit or to vote on others client requests. Stay connected with us! Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+. Get updates on all out newest features, events and hear about what’s happening at CoreMotives.

Advanced Training

Learn more

Did you know we offer Microsoft Dynamics CRM Marketing Training? Our classes teach you how to be an exceptional marketer. You will learn how to create a powerful marketing engine for your organization with our weekly classes — sign up today: http://coremotivestraining.com/advanced-training/.

Where to find CoreMotives Q1, 2012

This past year was a fun filled and busy year of traveling for Coremotives full of interactions with our clients across the globe.  We are very excited for 2012 and where we will be going.  Here is where you can find us in Q1, 2012:

Webfortis Road Show

• January 17^th –San Francisco, CA
• January 18^th –Mountain View, CA
• January 26^th –Los Angeles, CA
• January 27^th –Irving, CA

Extreme 2012: Berlin

• February 5-8

Convergence 2012: Houston, TX

• March 18-21

Be sure to let us know if you’re attending these, as we’d love to see you!  Keep an eye out for other CoreMotives spottings in 2012.

CoreMotives integrates CAPTCHA for Microsoft Dynamics CRM web forms

We are excited to announce our new “slider” CAPTCHA to protect web form data integrity submitted into Microsoft Dynamics CRM. A captcha is a validation test used on web sites to make sure that the data being submitted is actually coming from a human and not a malitious automated bot or script. We all know our CRM data is sacred, so this feature is key to preventing abuse and data contamination.

The CoreMotives captcha is elegant and simple. Try it below – just use the slider to unlock the form! Studies show that traditional captcha’s severly impact conversion rates because the required text input can be so difficult – leave it to CoreMotives to offer this clever alternative.

To see a full list of features we offer for creating web forms and surveys for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, go here.

More people trust CoreMotives for marketing automation with Microsoft Dynamics CRM than any other solution. What are you waiting for? You could be live with CoreMotives in 15 minutes, contact us to get started.

Want to know more about CAPTCHA? Read the Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA

What is a SPAM Trap & Blacklisting?

What Are SPAM Traps?

A spam trap is an email address that look perfectly normal and valid that is used to identify spam messages.  The idea behind them is to create emails that have never been subscribed to any email communication.  These addresses are then monitored and anything it receives has been unsolicited, aka SPAM.

How did a SPAM Trap get on our list?

Typically, list maintenance and cleaning will prevent SPAM traps from ever joining your marketing list.  How it came to be on your mailing list depends on the type of spam trap it is.  There are 3 standard types of traps: List poisoning, List aging, & Poor list sources.

• List Poisoning:  This can be accidental or deliberate and can be the result of someone using a bogus email address to get materials from your website.  In not using their real email address they may have deliberately or accidentally input a SPAM trap.  The easiest way to avoid this is to ensure  that the list you are sending to is confirmed and you have their permission to email.  The CoreMotives Subscription Center helps to document this and keeps a detailed record of the opt-in for users – we even offer a double opt-in feature that requires an email address be confirmed by a human, making it impossible to have a SPAM trap.
• List Aging: Email addresses that you gathered a long time ago may no longer be valid and can be re-purposed to function as spam traps.  If you have not cleaned your database or marketing list for a long time and continue to send to those email addresses, you could get caught by a SPAM trap.
• Poor List Sources: Beyond being a violation of the CoreMotives Email Policy, poor list sources are a large reason to never purchase, rent, or harvest marketing list.  This is the most common way to get caught by a SPAM Trap.

Why Do SPAM Traps Matter?

Blacklisting:

Blacklisting is a process where the internet is actively monitored for reports of SPAM.  These reports are then publicly listed on internet sites for reference as an effort to fight SPAM.  Many ISP’s and organizations use these blacklist databases as a reference to filter email.  This means that once blacklisted, your emails are very unlikely to ever reach your end contact.

New Partnership with ZY Solutions!

Chicago, IL (November 17, 2011) – ZY Solutions Corp., an innovative information technology and multimedia consulting company, is helping clients target and communicate with customers better through a new partnership with CoreMotives, a global leader in marketing solutions for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

ZY Solutions helps companies integrate Microsoft Dynamics CRM with CoreMotives’ rich email and web marketing solutions, eliminating the need for a third-party email marketing system while allowing direct campaign tracking in a familiar CRM environment. It’s a powerful combination that gives sales teams actionable information they can use to target and qualify quality leads while uncovering new opportunities for sales and growth.

Embedded directly within Dynamics CRM to provide users with valuable information in one centralized location, CoreMotives’ advanced solutions are designed to enhance:

• Email marketing
• Lead scoring
• Web visitor tracking
• Nurture marketing
• Web forms
• Surveys
• Alert notifications

CoreMotives’ cost-effective solutions add significant functionality to the base CRM marketing model while eliminating time- and money-wasting inefficiencies. No longer do companies need to cobble together a “square peg/round hole” process that includes managing campaigns within CRM and then executing with a disparate email system. And because all CoreMotives’ solutions are based on the Windows Azure cloud, there’s no software to install or maintain, which means low-cost operations.

“Companies today are looking for ways to cost-effectively leverage information from CRM for critical marketing activities,” said Rhett Thompson, CoreMotives Co-Founder. “With our solutions, emails are sent within Dynamics CRM, leads are scored to help salespeople use their time more effectively, more valuable information is gleaned from clients’ corporate Web sites, and more actionable information can be given to sales and marketing.”

“Our proven expertise, combined with CoreMotives’ integrated software, gives companies a one-of-a-kind combination of consulting services and product features,” said David Fretwell, ZY Solutions CEO. “With ZY Connect’s Dynamics CRM experience and ZY Media’s marketing expertise, this new partnership provides proven marketing solutions to companies in virtually any vertical.”

About CoreMotives

CoreMotives is the number one marketing automation vendor in the Dynamics CRM space, with over 700 clients in 30 countries. Offering email marketing, lead scoring, web visitor tracking, nurture marketing, web forms, surveys, and alert notifications all embedded within CRM, CoreMotives enables clients to detect, track and target prospects interacting with their website or other marketing assets. CoreMotives is Marketing power for Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Over 650 Customers and Growing!

Atlanta–October 18th, 2011 –CoreMotives has not slowed down in 2011.  Constantly releasing new features and adding new clients.  CoreMotives has now surpassed over 650 clients in 32 countries around the globe and they show projections to be largest player in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM Marketing Automation space by the end of the year with over 1,000 clients world wide.
Notable clients and partners added during Q2: Weight Watchers Creative Sign Designs ECRI Institute Bridgespan Group Empower Software

7 Email Marketing Best Practices

Here are 7 easy best practices that you can start incorporating into your email marketing efforts today.

Email From Name

We are much more likely to open emails and answer phone calls from people that we know.  I know many people who will let a phone call go to voicemail if the person is not in their caller ID.  This is often the same with emails because our inboxes have become so overrun with junk email.  Recipients of your emails have expectations of who will be contacting them; the most common will be either your company name or your first and last name.  Be sure to keep this consistent so that your recipients will continue to recognize the sender of each of your emails.

Email Subject Line

As one would expect, the Subject Line is one of the most important components of your email because it is what will determine if the email is worth opening or not.  The Subject Line should creatively tell what the email is about and/or include a call-to-action.

Email Headline

Just like newspapers, email newsletters have headlines and they need to be catchy.  On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. (www.copyblogger.com/magnetic-headlines/)  After the From field and Subject Line, the Headline is the next most important part of your email- this is what keeps people reading.  Your Headline should clearly state what your offer or call-to-action is (Invitation, discount, webinar, white paper, etc.)

Email Personalization

Doing simple things like merging your recipient’s first name within your email can add a nice personal touch to emails. Plus, it is very easy to do in the CoreMotives editor (http://coremotivestraining.com/email-marketing/dynamic-content).  You can also personalize using any information that you have as a field in your CRM database.

Email Images

Images accomplish 2 things in emails: they increase the visual appeal of your email and they break up your text which makes your email more ‘scannable’ to your recipients.

The 80/20 Rule: Because your recipients need to actively choose to download images in most email clients, you do not want those images doing all of the talking.  Thus, this guideline was created for composing emails – 80% text and 20% images.  You want to make sure that your email message is effectively communicated without relying on images, because not everyone will chose to open/download them.
LINK Your Images: Standard design has trained people to believe that when there is an image, they should be able to click on it to find out more information.  This is one of the best ways to drive up your click through rate.  Make sure the image link actually takes your recipients to a page about the image.  Also, Use ‘Alt’ Text: This is the text that is shown prior to a recipient choosing to download your images; thus, it is very important for this to communicate your offer or call-to-action (something to entice people to download the images).

Email Call-To-Action (CTA)

Every email you send should have a call-to-action, a purpose or an objective beyond conveying information in the email.  The objective of this CTA is to drive further interaction with your website and business.  The call-to-action should quickly let the recipient know what to do now that they have read the email you sent them.  Some examples: Buy Now, Get 20% Off, Find Out More, Download Now

Social Badges

Social Media has become a necessary tool for every business and it can be easily included in your email marketing campaigns.  CoreMotives easily lets you incorporate social sharing into every one of your email campaigns.

Incorporating all of these best practices is very easy inside of CoreMotives.  Check out a demo today: http://coremotives.com/purchase/webinars/

Why File Sharing Matters

Have you ever wanted to let your web visitors not only fill out a form but upload files?  And more than that, have those files be stored under their record inside of your CRM system so that your sales reps and customer service reps can easily reference those files? 

Showcasing work, sharing templates, submitting a resume or order form, prospect information, and support help are just a few of the many ways you can now leverage the CoreMotives File Upload feature in Web Forms.

Often times a web form is simply not enough.  You need more information than what is available through the fields on the webform – a screen shot of a support problem, resume submission for applicant tracking, contract agreement and tracking logged under a contact or lead record.   The new file upload feature in CoreMotives Webforms allows visitors to upload a file when they fill out a form.  An online form can be greatly reduced in length and complexity (thus increasing the likelihood that web visitors will fill it out) when the information can be submitted in a file.

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The uploaded document is then saved as an attachment against the Contact or Lead record in CRM.

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When you use the CoreMotives File Upload feature for your web forms you are now able to easily:

-        Create an application form for employment and upload resumes

-        Use your web form for support help and have clients upload screen shots

-        Enable prospective vendors to share their work portfolios with you

-        Track files directly under contact and lead records