Your database is one of your most important assets. For some organisations it is years in the making, and the key way that communication happens between the organisation and its customers. It is essential to maintain it regularly; the beginning of each year is a great time to do that, but of course you could schedule regular update activities.
Remove Categories that are no longer in use
Let's say, you segmented your database for a one off campaign, assigning groups of contacts to new categories to make it easy for you to attach the right contacts to the right campaigns. These categories may no longer be of any use. You can un-assign all contacts from a category that is no longer in use, and delete the category, all in the one step. Rest assured, deleting the category will not delete the associated contacts from your Enudge account. It will simply un-assign the contacts from the deleted category.
To delete an unused category:
Navigate to CONTACTS > Manage Categories.
Select one or more categories to be removed by checking the box at the end of the row.
Click the DELETE ALL SELECTED CATEGORIES button to complete the action.
Find Contacts not in any category
Using categories is a quick and easy way to attach the right contacts to a campaign in Enudge.
To find all contacts who are not currently in any category:
Navigate to CONTACTS > Manage Categories.
Scroll down to the bottom of the screen.
If there are any contacts not in a category you will see a button like the following, telling you the number that are uncategorised:
Click on the button to go to a screen allowing you to, in bulk or one at a time, associate those contacts with a selected category.
NB: if all your contacts are already in at least 1 category, you won't see the button.
Update contact information in bulk
Information about your contacts such as organisation, position, address, reference, custom field values etc. can change overtime. If you personalise your messages, or perform segmentation using the information, then it is imperative that the Enudge contact records are kept up to date. Enudge makes it very easy to update your contact information, in bulk.
To add new information to your contacts, in bulk:
Create a csv file (it's easy to do this using Excel) which contains the email addresses or mobile numbers of the contacts that need to be updated.
Add a column which contains the new information.
Upload the file, making sure to tick the "Update information if contact already exists" option, as shown below. This will cause Enudge to over-write existing information and/or add new details.
Important note: if you wish to upload information that is not represented by existing Enudge fields, you can use one of the 15 custom fields to store that information.
There are numerous other ways to import your contact information into Enudge, but using a CSV file as described above is a very simple way.
Unbounce contacts
It is good practice to go through your bounce report to try and find contacts which you know for a fact have valid email addresses. Contacts will be bounced by Enudge if an email gateway reports (via a wide range of error codes) that the address does not exist or is refusing emails. Sometimes the problem is later corrected by the user / email gateway, and therefore their email is working again.
You can access a list of your bounced contacts from CONTACTS > Reports... > Bounced Contacts.
Once you have complied a list of all valid contacts, please email the list to support@enudge.com.au and we will remove them from the bounce list.
Automated Updates
Keeping your contacts up to date with your operational systems can also be achieved through integration between Enudge and your operational systems. Enudge provides for integration using Zapier, our API and other 3rd party cloud applications.