At the top of your Contacts view are a number of tools that appear after you’ve selected a group of contacts or a smart list. When you hover your mouse over one of these tools, it will tell you its function. Here are the tools you’ll find:
Pipeline Change
Add to Campaign
Send SMS
Send Email
Add Tag
Remove Tag
Delete Contacts
Export Contacts
Import Contacts
Merge Contacts
Merge contacts is most commonly used for cleaning up duplicate contact entries. Select the contacts you'd like to merge and then click the merge button.
In the window that appears, you'll need to choose one entry to be the master and then select which information from each of the additional contact entries should be added to the master.
After you've chosen what to keep, type confirm in the box and then click Resolve. This will merge the contacts into a single entry.
Let's also take a look at how you can send an email to multiple contacts or a smart list.
When you select your contacts and click the Send Email button, an email editor window will appear.
On the editor, choose a template from the dropdown and then enter the sender's name, their email address, and a subject.
Next, compose your email or edit your template as needed.
At the bottom, there are a few sending options. You can choose to send the email to all selected contacts at once, schedule it to send later, or choose drip mode to send the email in batches.
When you select drip mode, more options appear to customize how and when the emails will be sent. You can specify the number of emails to be sent at once, as well as the time gap between sending, the days of the week to send, and an overall date range for sending.
On the Contacts view, the Send SMS bulk option works in the same way.
After you select your contacts and click Send SMS, you can select a template or simply type out your SMS text. In addition, you have the same sending options as with email.
And the Add to Campaign tool is the same as sending an email or SMS.
The only difference is that instead of a template, you'll select the campaign or workflows you want to add the contacts to.
The Pipeline Change bulk action allows you to move contacts from one stage of a Pipeline to another. After you choose your contacts and then click the Pipeline Change tool, you’ll select the Pipeline from the dropdown and specify the destination stage.
The other options allow you to add more detail to the contacts' status in the Pipeline. Please note that these are the same options found in triggers when you add or update an opportunity.
If you've created a bulk action, like sending an email, you can monitor its progress and make changes. In the Contacts menu on the top, click Bulk Actions.
This is useful when you are using drip mode or scheduling a future send.
If your bulk action hasn't started yet, you can cancel it by clicking the X icon. You can also click edit (the pencil icon) to make changes.
In the window that appears, you can edit your bulk action.
If you're using the Add to campaign/workflow bulk action, there is something else you should know.
This bulk action follows the existing campaign details - that means that if you set a specific timeframe in the campaign configuration, it will be followed.
For example, in the campaign pictured, events are only run from Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm. If you add contacts to the campaign on Sunday using the bulk action, the events will not trigger until Monday at 8am.
The same is true for sending in drip mode. Your batches will be paused during times when the campaign is not active and then resumed as normal once the campaign window is reached again.
Using bulk actions is an effective way to leverage your platform’s tools and save time with a more streamlined workflow.