If you use physical mailshots in your company you will be delighted to discover the massive time saving functions that Mekashron offers you in terms of automatically printing labels for all the entities to whom you wish to send mailshots. Using Mekashron to streamline label printing for your mailshots will save you huge amounts of time and effort. If you have ever been frustrated by the difficulty of laying out addresses for successful printing on address labels, you will love the simplicity of the Mekashron label layout interface.
In this chapter we will look specifically at using Mekashron for printing labels for your physical mailshot campaigns. The topics we will cover are:
At this stage, we assume that you have completed the following tasks:
- Successfully Installed Mekashron
- Set up or imported your Entities
- Reviewed the chapter on the Mekashron Editor, which is used to create the labels you will use for your physical mailshots.
You will need to be logged into your Mekashron system as an administrator in order to set up Print Campaigns.
1 - Printing Labels
There are three main steps for mailshot campaigns:
- Select your entities
- Create your labels
- Print your labels
In the main Mekashron Entity List screen, select the entities for whom you wish to print address labels:
Figure 1.1 Selecting Entities for Label Printing
For tips on how to filter, find and select the list of entities that you wish to use, please refer to Search Entities.
Once you are happy with your prospect list, select Campaign -> Print Labels from the Main Menu:
Figure 1.2 Printing Labels from the Main Menu
Alternatively, you can simply click on the Print button:
Figure 1.3 The Print Button
Either of these actions will bring up the Mekashron Editor for you to create your labels in:
Figure 1.4 The Mekashron Editor
The functionality of the Mekashron Editor is fully documented here: Editor.
Inserting the name and address fields for the label is made extremely easy with the Macro function. For detailed instructions on how to use the Macro function, please refer to the Editor chapter.
Let's see an example of setting up a label for our mailshot with the clients name and full address. First, click on the Macro button:
Figure 1.5 The Macro Button
You will be presented with the following screen:
Figure 1.6 The Macro Screen
Inserting fields from this screen is as simple as selecting one field at a time and clicking OK. The default screen above shows you fields related to an entity (for example, your client). There are other fields that you can insert, but all the fields we need for our address labels are found on this tab.
We'll insert the following fields in turn:
- First Name
- Last Name
- Company
- Address
- City
- State
- Zip
You may also wish to insert the Country field, if you are creating an international mailshot.
Now our document looks like this:
Figure 1.7 Document with Fields Inserted
Now we'll format our label with the appropriate font and alignment, and of course insert paragraph breaks between the fields:
Figure 1.8 A Formatted Label
Next we will customize the layout to fit with the particular labels we are going to print on. To do this, select Format -> Page Setup from the main menu:
Figure 1.9 The Page Setup Menu Option
You will be presented with the Page Setup dialog box:
Figure 1.10 The Page Setup Dialog Box
The main portion of the screen offers you a number of layout options, and there is a very useful preview area on the right, outlined in the screenshot above in red.
To lay out your labels, simply enter the appropriate values for the various fields:
- Size Unit - This option at the top right of the screen specifies the units you use to measure your labels, by default centimeters.
- Label Width - The width measurement of an individual label.
- Label Height - The height measurement of an individual label.
- Labels Down - The number of labels you have on a single sheet, vertically.
- Labels Across - The number of labels you have on a single sheet, horizontally.
- Separation - Horizontal - The space between two horizontally adjacent labels.
- Separation - Vertical - The space between two vertically adjacent labels.
- Left Margin - The margin to be allowed at the left hand edge of the page.
- Right Margin - The margin to be allowed at the right hand edge of the page.
- Top Margin - The margin to be allowed at the top edge of the page.
- Bottom Margin - The margin to be allowed at the bottom edge of the page.
As you can see in the example below, as you alter the various measurements the preview area updates dynamically to show you how your printed labels will be laid out.
Figure 1.11 An Example of A Typical Label Layout
Once you are happy that your labels are laid out correctly, you are ready to send the labels to your printer by clicking the Print Labels button:
Figure 1.12 The Print Labels Button
You will be presented with the print Options screen:
Figure 1.13 The Print Options Screen
At this point, all you need to do in order to send your labels to the printer is select the appropriate printer and click OK.
You will then be presented with the Campaign Options screen:
Figure 1.14 The Campaign Options Screen
The Campaign options in this screen are:
- Campaign Name - If you wish to save these address labels as a campaign, enter a new campaign name here and select the box below, Save as Campaign
- Save as Campaign - If this option is selected then the Campaign Name field above is a required field. However, if you simply want to print these labels as a one-off event rather than a campaign, then you can de-select this option and leave the text box above empty.
- Apply only to new entities - When you later print the labels again, if this option is NOT checked then you will be able to print labels for ALL the entities you have selected in the Entity List. However, if you wish to leave out labels for prospects who have already received this mailshot, please check this box in order to print the labels only for additional entities that you have added to the campaign.
The other options, on the right of the screen, are:
- Schedule To: - Here you enter the date and time when you would like your labels to be sent to the printer. If you are sending a large mailshot, for example, you may wish to schedule your printing for during the night in order to not tie up your printers during the working day.
- Spooler Priority - In this drop down you can select a priority of Low, Normal or High. In this way you can ensure that your labels are printed before other items spooling to the same printer, if you select a High priority, or that they lag behind more important documents if you select a Low priority.
Once you have set the options for printing your labels, click OK to send the labels to your printer.
Once you have sent your labels to the printer, you can view the status of the campaign in your outbox or sent folder on the Outgoing/Incoming Campaigns tab. For more information, please see the Campaigns Manage chapter.
2 - Adding Entities to a Label Print Campaign
Once you have set up one or more label printing campaigns, you can easily print labels for more clients or prospects (Entities) by adding them to the campaign when you are ready to send a mailshot out to another batch of clients.
First, select the set of entities that you would like to print additional labels for in the Entities screen:
Figure 2.1 Selecting Additional Entities to Add to a Print Campaign
Note that if you filter the entities to show all those you wish to add, you can simply right click and choose Select All to quickly select all of the entities currently shown in the list:
Figure 2.2 Selecting All Entities in the Filtered List
As you did when creating a label printing campaign, now select Campaign -> Print Labels , or click on the Print button.
When you enter the Mekashron Editor, by default it opens with a new document (in other words a fresh, new campaign). To open an existing label, click on Campaign and then select the existing label printing campaign you would like to use.
Figure 2.3 Selecting an Existing Label Print Campaign
this then opens up the label that we created earlier.
To print address labels for the entities that we selected, we can now click the Print button:
Figure 2.4 The Print Button
In the Options screen, this time Mekashron has pre-filled the Campaign Name field for us as you can see below:
Figure 2.5 The Options Screen for an Existing Print Labels Campaign
The key option at this point is the Apply only to new entities checkbox. Ensure this option is checked if you simply want to create labels for the new entities that you have added and ensure that no duplicates are printed for entities that have already received this mailshot. However, if you wish to print labels for ALL of the entities that you have selected, even if some of them already had labels printed previously, then leave this option de-selected.
3 - Label Print Campaign Statistics
In this section we will look at the statistical information that Mekashron gives you with regard to your print campaigns.
To access the statistics, from the Main Mekashron menu select Tools -> Statistics:
Figure 3.1 - Accessing Statistics from the Main Menu
Alternatively, you can click on the Statistics button:
Figure 3.2 - The Statistics Button
In the Statistics Type box on the left expand the &Campaign group and then select Printings:
Figure 3.3 - The Statistics Type Box
Here you can quickly see how many labels were printed in a particular campaign:
Figure 3.4 - Label Statistics
As you can see, the statistics are shown in graphical form on the right of the screen. The graph and data change dynamically depending on your selections:
- Date - The From and To date and time for the period you wish to view:
Figure 3.5 - The Date Control
- Campaigns - In this selection list you simply select the print campaigns you wish to view information for:
Figure 3.6 - The Campaigns Selection List
Once you are happy with the statistics view, you can print or save your output:
Figure 3.7 - Printing or Saving Your Statistics
If you select the BMP option, then when you click the Print Statistics button you will be able to save the statistical view as an image on your PC or network.
If you select the Printer option, then Mekashron will send the output to your printer.
4 - Label Print Campaign Reports
In this section we will look at the reporting facilities that Mekashron gives you with regard to your print campaigns.
To access the reports, from the Main Mekashron menu select Tools -> Reports:
Figure 4.1 - Accessing Reports from the Main Menu
Alternatively, you can click on the Reports button:
Figure 4.2 - The Reports Button
In the Report Type pane, expand the &Campaign option and then select Printings:
Figure 4.3 - The Report Type Pane
You are now presented with all of the options in the right hand pane for filtering your print campaign report:
Figure 4.4 - The Print Campaign Reporting Options
At the top right, select the business whose data you wish to report on:
Figure 4.5 - The Business Dropdown
Next, you can specify the date and time range of data you wish to include:
Figure 4.6 - The Date Control
In the Campaigns list, you can check all the campaigns you wish to include in this report:
Figure 4.7 - The Campaigns List
You can also filter your report by the status of the labels sent to the printer, in the Status checklist (in the example below all our selected labels printed successfully, so the only status we have showing is Printed):
Figure 4.8 - The Statuses List
Once you have chosen your filtering options, you can customize the fields that will be shown on your report:
Figure 4.9 - The Visible Fields Control
Select those fields that you wish to include, and if desired use the arrow buttons:
Figure 4.10 - The Control for Moving the Visible Fields
to move those fields into the order that you wish to have them displayed on the report.
When you are ready to create your report, select the output type you desire:
Figure 4.11 - Selecting the Output Type
and then choose the page setup you want your report to have:
Figure 4.12 - Choosing the Orientation of the Report
before clicking the Generate Report button:
Figure 4.13 - The Generate Report Button
Here is an example of a label printing report in Excel format:
Figure 4.14 - An Label Printing Campaign Report in Excel Format
5 - Summary
In this section we have covered the use of Mekashron for printing labels for physical mailshots, and its simple and time-saving label printing functionality.