Vertical Response

Mass email integrated into Salesforce -- and free to nonprofits

Why use VR?

It's free. It integrates with SF campaigns. Email gets delivered. It manages opt-outs.

How to install and integrate VR into Salesforce

Go to the VR Appexchange page to install.

Note- If VR installation process detects that this is the first time you are installing Vertical Response (presumably by checking for a cookie) it will ask for contact information. If using a Prism instance specific to one salesforce environment, you are guaranteed to be prompted. Using Firefox or IE (if you never clear cookies), you should only have to enter info once.

Follow the steps in the VR Customization Guide

How to craft HTML

How we recommend managing newsletters with VR

Pitfalls and Caveats

VR needs custom campaign member statuses on each campaign that it pulls from: "Opened, Clicked, Bounced, Unsubscribed" (this list should be verified)
Statistics updating doesn't happen automatically -- you have to manually update stats. This process:

Creates the VR object (which shows up as a related list on contact)
Updates the standard Email Opt Out field on the Contact record for any unsubscribes
Updates Campaign Member statuses, as long as the additional statuses have been configured on the campaign

Email templates created within VR can only be used by the user who created the template. (However, all VR users can access SF email templates from within VR.)
Email credits (10,000 per month) are per user, not per org. However, you can allegedly contact VR with a list of the users in your org who you want to share credits and they can set that up.
VR uses the standard SF field Email Opt Out on the contact record, and will automatically update this field for unsubscribes, but not until you do the manual update stats.

Understanding Opt Out and Bounce Administration

VR automatically checks the standard SF "Email Opt Out" field on the contact record (when stats are updated) for any contact who has unsubscribed. This is an all or nothing opt out -- there isn't an out of the box solution for managing single opt outs to selected lists.

One solution for managing multiple lists is:

Create a multi-select picklist (or series of checkboxes) on the contact record, with values corresponding to the various newsletters.
When building a VF list, filter on contacts who have the particular newsletter selected.
Optionally, create a VF sites page for managing subscriptions. Users would see their current opt in/opt out status for each list, and have the ability to update their list preferences.

Note: there is specific language required to make it clear that this is a "manage subscriptions" link which is different from the VR unsubscribe link. Groundwire has implemented a VR sites page like this and can provide more info.
SF doesn't allow updates to standard objects (such as Contact) from sites pages. A workaround is to use a custom controller rather than a standard controller to get the same functionality. Morally gray area?

If a user unsubscribes, VR will both update the contact record and also its own internal list. If the user later wants to resubscribe, you'll need to update both the SF contact record and also the VR record.