Letter Templates

Letter Templates are a great way to create well-crafted messages that you can use over and over again. This will save you a tremendous amount of time and will ensure that you and your entire team are delivering a consistent message when communicating with your prospects and customers.

You can create custom Letter Templates in your account as follows:

  1. Click on the Admin tab in the left navigation menu
  2. In the "Manage Templates" section, click on "Letter Templates"
  3. Click the orange "Add New Letter Template" button.
  4. Fill in the "Name", "Description" and "Body" fields and SAVE by clicking on the orange "Add Letter Template" button.


Pasting text into your template

When creating an email there are a variety of sources from which content can be generated.  Other than typing the text directly into the email you will need to copy and past from other sources to create the content for your email.

It is important to know that you must use the copy and paste tools within our email text editor to ensure the proper formatting of this content.  

As an example, Microsoft Word is one of the most common sources for pasting content into an email.  It is not recommended that you paste directly from a Word document as you will not be happy with the resulting format.  It may look fine when viewing in the email text editor, but when sent it can and likely will lose some of the formatting that you have taken the time to create.

Below is a screenshot of the email toolbar and the icons you will want to use depending on where and how you are pasting content into your email.  

Please note that the icon on the right hand of this set is specifically designed for pasting from a Word document.

 PasteFunctions2.png

Using Merge Fields in your Letter Template

You can use both standard and custom merge fields in your letter templates.  You will want to make special note to their formatting requirements to ensure proper merging of your data.

Standard Data Fields and their merge values

 
PLEASE NOTE: When using these merge values you must put double brackets on each side.   Example: {{first_name}}
 

Merge fields for the personal information in a Contact record located under the Personal Info tab)

Field name in the contact record                   Merge value

First Name                                                            {{first_name}}

Last Name                                                            {{last_name}}

Salutation                                                              {{salutation_dear}}

Formal Name                                                       {{salutation}}

Address                                                                 {{home_address}}

Address 2                                                              {{home_address2}}

City                                                                         {{home_city}}

State                                                                       {{home_state}}

Postal Code                                                          {{home_postal_code}}

Country                                                                  {{home_country}}

Home Phone                                                        {{phone}}

Merge fields for the business information in a Contact record (located under the Office Info tab)

Field name in the contact record                   Merge value

Business Name                                                   {{business_name}}

Address                                                                {{business_address}}

Address 2                                                              {{business_address2}}

City                                                                         {{business_city}}

State                                                                       {{business_state}}

Postal Code                                                          {{business_postal_code}}

Country                                                                  {{business_country}}

 
Please Note:  While Merge fields will appear with brackets before you send the email, they will display the actual data in that particular field of the contact record when the email is received by your contact.  For example, {{first_name}} will appear as {{first_name}} before you send the email, but if "John" is in the "first name" field then "John" will display when your contact sees the email. 
 

Custom Data Fields and their merge values

 

Custom data fields - any fields that you create/ customize within the system need to be typed EXACTLY as they were in the field - paying close attention to the letters that are capitalized and those that are in lower case.

As long as you keep this distinction between standard and custom fields your merge fields will work as you planned.

To obtain the correct form names you will need to merge the data from the web form into your custom fields:
  • Click on the Admin tab
  • In the "Manage my Account" section, click on the "Customize Account" link
  • Click on the "Custom Fields" sub-tab