As we are quickly approaching the new CBSubs release (version 1.3), I have been testing and documenting the new features and improvements. One of the major highlighted features is the CBSubs Mailer integration plugin that, in my opinion, will be a killer for all membership environments. So, I am sharing some of the concepts and use case scenarions that I am working on (to by included in the documentation) as a sneak preview of this awesome new feature set.
The initial "wishlist" feature request called for a method to send early reminder emails to subscribers just before a subscription ends instead of relying on the CBSubs subscription expiration emailing which is sent just after subscription ends. This initial idea has been expanded into a highly configurable scheduled messaging environment that can support a broad range of memberhip management use cases.
So far, I have identified 7 such use cases that I am documenting for our next CBSubs 1.3 users manual. These use cases are summarized as follows:
- Welcome message sent 1 week after registration
Send your new users a followup message (in addtion to CB welcome message) one week after their registration date. - Send personalized message 1 month after last online date of user
The concept is to identify members that appear to be away from your site and rekindle their interest to visit again. - Birthday wishes
Concept is self explanitory. Send a happy birthday message to your users on their birthday (specified in a CB date field) anniversary. This can be combined with a nice birthday promotion coupon (using the already available CBSubs Smart Promotions functionality) - Subscription benefits reminder message
Concept is to send specific CBSubs plan subscribers a scheduled message 3 months after their subscription start date and remind them about all the subscription benefits they are entitled to. It is good marketing practise to make sure subscribers are aware of services they have access to. - Subscription expiration early notification message
Send users an early expiration notice three days before a specific CBSubs plan subscription is scheduled to end. Once again this message can be combined with a CBSubs renew before expiration discount coupon concept. - Subscription expiration follow-up message
A CBSubs membership subscription has recently ended and user appear to have chosen not to renew. Send a message to such users 10 days after expiration and thank them for their past membership, give them a gift perhaps and make another last offer attempt to get them to renew. - Merchandise sale follow-up message
Some CBSubs membership sites also offer product sales (as CBSubs merchandise plans). These are paying customers that you can target and send them a message 10 days after their purchase with upgrade offer discount for one of your subscription plans (once again using CBSubs Smart Promotions).
Each of the above cases can also be conditionally filtered based on CB field values users have populated. This way, for example, we can filter all mailer tasks to only go to users that have not specified (through a CB field on their profile) that they do not want to receive similar messages.
As you can see the functionality is very rich and the only limitation I can see (at this point) is your imagination. I have included a set of actual screenshots for your pleasure and to help you understand the user interface concepts supporting the new mailer functionality.
{mos_sb_discuss:6}