(MC-3) Using Contact Search and Lists
Workshop Angel has a sophisticated search facility, enabling you to create unique lists of contacts that you can use for sending emails.
In this lesson we will walk you through how to use it to meet your needs.
When you first enter the Contacts area, you are presented with the simple search option, which is designed for finding a specific contact via their name fields:
To find all the available contacts, you need to have all of the search options empty.
- Click on the [Clear search options] button
Showing all contacts will be the default option if you have not used any other options since you logged in.
To find a specific contact:
- Start typing a part of their name or email address in the "Contact name or email" search box
The contact list will change as you type, and find the contacts who match the letters you have typed.
As with most items in Workshop Angel, if you delete a contact it is not actually deleted - it is marked as deleted. This means you can find items you have deleted and restore them if necessary.
To find deleted contacts:
- Select the [Show deleted] option
- If necessary, also type a part of their name in the name search box
Deleted contacts will be shown with greyed strikethrough font:
To restore a deleted contact:
- Find them with the search as above
- Click on the contact name
- Click on the Undelete button
To view the advanced search options:
- Click on [show advanced search options]
The advanced search options then appear:
You now have the option to search for contacts whose records include all of the options you have selected.
Let's say you are running an activity which is targeted at females who are 18-40 years old, and you want to create a mailing list for everyone in your database who meets that criteria. You would also like to add another contact to the list who is a colleague who will be running the activity with you.
We will need to use the search function three times to make this list: once for females aged 18-25, and once for females aged 26-40, and once for adding your colleague.
For each search, we will add the results to what is known as the Contact List.
The first step is to make sure the Contact List is clear:
- Click on [View List] on the Found Contacts sub-menu.
The current state of the Contact List will appear on the right hand side. If it is empty, it will look like this:
If the list contains a current set of contacts, these will be shown:
In this case you need to clear the list before continuing:
- Click on [Clear List]
The list will now be empty and you will be ready to start your new list creation.
For the first search, set the following advanced options:
- Set gender to Female
- Set age range to 18-25
This will create a set of contacts in the search results:
You should now add these contacts to the list:
- Click on [+ Add All to List]
The list will appear on the right hand side with these contacts added:
For the second search, set the following advanced options:
- Set gender to Female
- Set age range to 26-40
This will create a different set of contacts in the search results - in our demonstration database it finds 11 contacts.
To add these contacts to those who are already on the list:
- Click on [+ Add All To List]
The list will now contain the 16 contacts you have found over the two searches:
To add your colleague to the list, follow these steps:
- In the Contact Search area, click on [Clear Search Options] to remove your previous settings
- Find your colleague using the name search
To add the single contact to the list:
- Click on the [+] icon next to the contact's name
The contact is now added to the list, so in our example now creating a list with 17 contacts:
The contacts in the list are shown in the order they were initially added to the database, so newly added contacts will not appear at the top of the list.
Now you have created your contact list, you are ready to send the email.
If you are sending a marketing type of email, you are required by law in most countries to only send the message to contacts who have actively subscribed to your mailing list.
You can manage mailing list subscriptions within Workshop Angel - see lesson MC-4 for details of how to do this. If you use this option, you will need to always select contacts who have subscribed to receive marketing from you.
To select contacts who have subscribed to your mailing list:
- Select the name of your brand in the [Subscribed to] option in the advanced search area for each of your searches that are used to construct your contact list
You can also use Workshop Angel's contact database with external email marketing tools - see lesson MC-5 for a discussion of the issues involved in working this way.
You may want to copy the complete Contact List for a few different reasons - here are the situations and how to do this.
Often, after an activity, you will want to send a list of attendee's contact details to those who attended.
Here is how to do this:
- From the Contact List, click on [Email List]
The Copy Contact List window appears.
- Select the format "Attendee List"
- Click anywhere in the list to copy it to your clipboard
- Paste the list into the email you are writing
You may want to send an email to a list of contacts from another external email system or a marketing tool such as Gmail or Mailchimp.
To do this:
- Follow the instructions listed above
- Select "Email bcc List" for the List Type
- Paste the list into your external system
We have seen how both the simple and advanced search functions work.
We have used the simple search to find individual contacts.
We have used the advanced search to create a multi-part list which can be used for sending mailings to your contacts.
Finally, we have seen how to use the Contact List to create a list of contacts or to send a bulk email from within Workshop Angel.
There is lots of flexibility to organise your data in Workshop Angel to find a specific group of contacts you need. For more details on how to set up and manage these categorisation options, see lesson AF-1 - Creating Targeted Mailing Lists.
In the next lesson we will look at all the details of how to manage Mailing List Subscriptions.