Sending Emails to Your CRM

Contacting your customers and clients is an essential part of doing business. The method of sending emails to your CRM depends on your needs. This article will review several email-sending techniques and which are best for your use case. We will create an email template, filter a list of one or more customers, and then send the emails to them.

Additional steps must be taken to send emails from your company domain (example, from erica@mycompany.com). In SendGrid, Domain Verification should be completed. KDDI Bulk Send allows emails to be sent from a unique subdomain (for example, `info@*mail*.example.com`). The required preparation will be explained in more detail.

SendGrid from Twilio is a cloud-based email service that allows you to send emails from your company domain.

This method has a free tier that allows you to send 100 emails a day. The steps for setup are generally:

1. Add the SendGrid plugin to your Customer app (where target email addresses are stored).
2. Create an email template in your SendGrid portal.
3. Add the API Key and update the settings of the plugin.
4. Filter a list of customers (called a View in Kintone).
5. Select your email template from the list view and click send.

• *Note**: Without completing the Domain Verification step, all your emails will be flagged with a “sent via SendGrid”.

SendGrid provides an online editor for creating email templates.

In SendGrid, create a Dynamic Template to create your email to send.

The body of the email is created in the editor.

In the Kintone SendGrid plugin settings, you can set the Dynamic Template in the Default Template dropdown.

The SendGrid plugin provides a preview of the email template.

Set the “To” and “From” fields in the plugin settings.

Click “Save” and update the app settings.

In the list view, you should see a dropdown to select your email template, and the send button.

Click the Send button to send the email template to the list of customers.

KDDI Bulk Send

This method fits the most comfortably into Kintone. Email templates are managed in a Kintone app. Emails are sent from your contacts app. KDDI Bulk Send also allows for text messaging from Kintone as well. You can send 80–11,000 emails and text messages for $30-$160 per month.

1. Add the Bulk Send plugin to your customers app (where target email addresses are stored).
2. Create a new app in Kintone called “Email Templates”. Create your first email template.
3. Create a View called “Email Send View”. Filter a list of the customers you want to email.
4. Update the plugin settings with the new View and the Email templates app.
5. In your customers app, select which template you want to send. Click “Send”. The email will be sent to all the customers in the list.

Note: Unless you request a unique email address, the emails will be sent from a default address such as: “@kddiamarketplace.com”. For a unique email address to be used, setup of DNS records in your domain provider portal is required (example, Godaddy.com or Register.com).

KDDI Bulk Send also supports SMS text messaging.

Create a new Kintone app called “Email Templates” with a dropdown for “From” and “Reply To”. Responses to your email will be sent to the “Reply To” address. Use a Text field for the Subject and use a Rich Text field for the body.

Add the plugin to your target app (for example, a “Customers” app). In the plugin settings, add the license keys provided by KDDI. Select your “Email Templates” app as the source of templates.

In the list view, you can select the template before sending to recipients in the list.

Here are some other factors to consider when sending mass emails.

Your emails may fall into the receiver’s “spam” folder.

Spam filters are present on all mail delivery systems. Whether or not your mail falls into the spam folder depends on your email address’ “reliability”.

If your email address is new, for example, the reliability will be low. To increase your reliability rating, your recipients must be opening and interacting with the emails you sent to them. If your recipients do not interact with your emails, they may be sorted into the spam/junk folder more often.

To increase reliability and trustworthiness of your email address, try “warming up” the email; send emails to people you know and tell them to open it, reply to it and even move it out of the spam folder. Send small amounts first, then gradually increase the volume. In the future, only include customers who opt-in or subscribe to your messages. Send quality content. SendGrid’s paid-tier allows you to monitor which recipients opened your messages.

Domain verification is difficult.

When sending emails, you may want to send them from your unique address (from our previous example, erica@mycompany.com). By default, SendGrid is able to send emails from your unique address, but the reliability may put emails into the spam folder. By using DKIM and SPF, the reliability of your address can be increased.

Domain Verification also ensures that your emails are accepted and delivered by recipients’ email servers. It requires adding DNS records to your domain provider’s portal. For KDDI Bulk Send, DNS setup is required when using a unique domain.

SendGrid will allow you to start sending emails from your address without Domain Verification or DKIM/SPF, but your legitimacy may be lower.

Your SendGrid account can be used to send emails from your company domain (erica@mycompany.com). Otherwise, a simple Gmail or Outlook account can be used.

DNS records are used by servers on the internet to find which mailbox to deliver a message to. They take 24–48 hours to propagate to all other servers online, so you may experience errors emailing in this time. WhatsMyDNS.com can be used to check if your records have updated.

This concludes the overview and tutorial of sending emails with your CRM in Kintone. If you experience issues, or need clarification, please post in our Kintone Developer Forum.