JP2015007853A - Email marketing support system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an email marketing support system that efficiently collects a large number of mail addresses of potential customers of merchandise or service provided by a user via the Internet, and transmits a step mail to the individual potential customers.SOLUTION: An email marketing support system includes: mail address collecting means for collecting mail addresses from websites of potential customers; mail address searching means capable of extracting, with searching conditions set by a user, registered mail addresses from a mail address file to create a target file; project creating means capable of creating email data in which a unique identifier is added to each of the registered mail addresses to create a project file for transmitting email to each of the registered mail addresses; and access managing means for storing information on a history of access from the potential customers to whom the email is transmitted so that the access history information can be searched by the mail address searching means with the unique identifier.

Description

  The present invention provides a step-by-step approach to companies and organizations (hereinafter referred to as “potential customers”) that can be expected to sell products or services of user businesses (hereinafter referred to as “users”). The present invention relates to an e-mail marketing support system for transmitting marketing e-mails for introducing / notifying the company's products or services, etc., and for supporting marketing activities for conversion to customers.

Along with direct mailing and telemarketing by telephone or fax, in recent years, advertising and sales promotion activities using electronic mail have been actively conducted. In particular, potential customers are registered as prospective customers by sending e-mails that induce access to their websites, and then repeat e-mails that provide various information. A marketing technique called “step mail” has been widespread, in which it is converted into a customer by sending the product / service, etc. of the company in a proper and step-by-step manner, and further becoming a fixed customer.

In order to make this marketing technique successful, it is first necessary to identify potential customers who can expect to use their products or services and collect their email addresses in large quantities and efficiently. Next, potential customers who have been guided to your website by sending an initial email are properly categorized and evaluated based on the status of access and the response to subsequent step emails. It is necessary to convert customers efficiently through continuous contact such as sending messages.

Regarding the collection of email addresses of potential customers, there are so-called rosters in the market that sell a large number of businesses and individual information including e-mail addresses that have already been collected and listed by attribute. It is also possible to purchase a list from However, it is not always efficient due to the cost of purchasing a roster and the problem that information on the roster is not always effective as a potential customer of the company. Some users may also take risks of illegality under the Personal Information Protection Law and Unfair Competition Prevention Law.

On the other hand, as a technique for collecting e-mail addresses of potential customers through the Internet, for example, a customer information collection system described in Patent Document 1 and a golf member information collection system described in Patent Document 2 have been proposed. However, all of these prior arts provide services such as games and some benefits to potential customers who have accessed through the website, and collect and collect their email addresses as compensation. It depends on the approach from the side. In that regard, e-mail addresses are provided along with personal information such as name and address through opportunities such as questionnaires, membership registration applications, and point card applications for readers who have viewed their websites. Although it is the same “waiting” collection method as that conventionally used, such as making a declaration, it is not easy to efficiently collect a large number of e-mail addresses in a short time.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-140507 Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-196319

In contrast to this “waiting” collection method, there is also a method of directly collecting the email addresses of potential customers using a search engine available on the Internet. Specifically, a search engine searches for specific keywords that are highly relevant to the company's products or services, sequentially accesses hit websites, collects the email addresses that exist, and collects the collected emails. There is known a method of using software having a function of transmitting e-mails simultaneously to addresses. Operators of websites that contain specific keywords can be expected as potential customers because they are likely to be consumers of their products or services, or at least be interested businesses or individuals. The act of collecting publicly available email addresses is basically legal.

By the way, websites generally have a hierarchical structure in which many pages are linked hierarchically with the top page as the first hierarchy, but the email address of the website operator is not necessarily listed on the top page. Is not limited. For this reason, there are many cases where conventional email address collection software cannot obtain email addresses from the websites of operators who are highly likely to become potential customers who hit the top of search, and if the number of searches increases to compensate for this, There is a problem that it takes time to collect email addresses.

In addition, businesses that can become potential customers for their products and services generally belong to a specific industry, and many potential customers are listed on websites of related organizations in that industry. However, even if a website of a related organization or the like is hit by a search engine, the top page usually contains only the email address of the related organization or the like. There was also a problem that it was not possible to efficiently collect the email addresses of many potential customers.

In e-mail marketing, by sending e-mails to the collected e-mail addresses, e-mail recipients who are potential customers are guided to access the user's website, and the accessed potential customers immediately become users. The purpose is achieved by making a customer by purchasing goods or services through the website on the other side.

In fact, there are many potential customers who do not reach a contract at that point in time even if they access the website on the user side, or suspend their attitude while repeating the access multiple times. Therefore, based on information such as access status from potential customers, as well as contact history in various forms with potential customers, such as e-mail and telephone inquiries to the user, and sending materials etc. from the user. The potential customer status can be efficiently converted to a potential customer if the status of the potential customer can be recorded and managed in association with the email address and can be sent to each potential customer at the right time. I can expect that.

However, conventional e-mail address collection software only collects and lists e-mail addresses, and users can send e-mails to e-mail addresses on the list all at once. There was no system that made it possible to send step mails according to the change.

  As described above, the e-mail marketing support system according to the present invention collects e-mail addresses of potential customers of a user's products or services in large quantities and efficiently through the Internet, and induces access to the user's website. A series of e-mails are sent and step emails with the appropriate content are sent to each potential customer at the right time by associating the status of the potential customer reflecting the history of user contact with the email address. The purpose is to enable the process in an integrated manner.

In order to achieve the above object, an e-mail marketing support system according to claim 1 of the present invention (hereinafter referred to as “the present system”) collects e-mail addresses from websites of potential customers on the Internet and sends e-mails. E-mail address collection means that can be registered in the address file, e-mail address search means that can create a target file by extracting the registered e-mail address from the e-mail address file according to the search conditions set by the user, and unique for each registered e-mail address A project creation means capable of generating a project file for creating e-mail data including a link to a user website with a unique identifier and sending the e-mail to a registered e-mail address in the target file; and e-mail Sent potential customers Save the access history information to al user-side web site as accessed data, characterized in that it consists of an access management means for enabling retrieval from the mail address retrieving means in association with the registered mail address by the unique identifier.

This system comprises four components, e-mail address collection means, e-mail address search means, project creation means, and access management means, which are stored in a computer on the user side connected to the Internet such as a server or a personal computer as an integrated program. It is installed in the device and functions as a single system. Further, this system uses a part of the area of the storage device of the computer as storage means of the system, and uses the display device and input device of the computer as input / output means of the system. The specific configuration depends on the hardware environment of the computer, and is not limited to this as long as it can support the functions of the system. The web server for constructing the user-side website may exist in the computer or may be provided in a separate form, but is connected to the system via a network such as the Internet / Intranet. And As for the mail sending means (so-called mailer) for sending an e-mail to the registered mail address by this system, a dedicated mail sending means may be provided in this system, but the mail sending means implemented by the computer may be provided. May be used.

Specifically, the e-mail address collecting means collects e-mail addresses from websites of potential customers on the Internet by the following procedure, and provides a function that enables registration in the storage means as e-mail address files.

(A) First, the user determines a specific search keyword highly relevant to his / her product or service, and inputs it by the input / output means from the “acquisition condition screen” provided by the mail address collecting means. To do. At this time, a single keyword may be used as a search condition, or a multiple search may be performed by inputting a plurality of keywords and performing an AND search. It is also possible to create a combined search keyword list enumerating a plurality of keywords in advance and store it in the storage means by the mail address collecting means, and use the keyword list as a search condition as a search condition by the user. It is. (B) When the user executes mail address collection after inputting the search condition, the mail address collecting means accesses a search engine selected in advance by the user and searches for a web page including the keyword of the search condition. In addition to using public search engines such as “Google (registered trademark)” and “Yahoo! ® (registered trademark)” as search engines, Internet phone book sites such as “i-Town Page (registered trademark)” are also used. Make it possible. (C) Next, the e-mail address collection means sequentially searches the web pages hit by the search engine from the top. Specifically, for example, the <mailt ::> tag in the html file of the web page to be searched is used. Search and specify the character string of the mail address and get it. (D) The e-mail address collecting means lists the acquired e-mail addresses for each search condition, and stores them in the storage means as a mail address file for registration. At this time, it is desirable to register the registered e-mail address together with the URL of the acquisition source web page, the keyword of the search condition, and the registration date.

The mail address search means searches the mail address file stored in the storage means according to the user's instruction, and extracts the registered mail address that matches the mail address search conditions specified by the user according to the purpose of sending the e-mail. A function is provided in which an arbitrary name is given to the search result so that it can be registered in the storage means as a target file.

As e-mail address search conditions, for example, the URL of the acquisition source web page, the search condition keyword, the registration date of the registered e-mail address, and the e-mail transmission date / mail registered in the storage means by the access management means described later Number of outgoing calls, access date / number of accesses from the email recipient to the user's website, inquiry date / number of inquiries by email from the email recipient to the user, and for each registered email address arbitrarily entered by the user Registered e-mail addresses extracted as search results, including evaluation and other information, can be saved and registered as target files with arbitrary names

And

The project creation means provides a function that enables creation of a transmission condition for sending an email to a registered email address and the content of the email as one project file in accordance with a user instruction.

On the project creation screen provided by the project creation means, the user can specify, for example, the name and description of the project file, the designation of the target file to be transmitted, the link to the URL of the user website displayed in the email, the email The sender e-mail address, the transmission start date and time, and the subject and body of the e-mail are specified or input through the input / output means, a project file is created, stored in the storage means, and registered. At this time, the project creation means adds a unique identifier for each registered e-mail address as a transmission destination to the link to the URL of the user-side website.

Furthermore, when the designated transmission start date and time arrives, the project creation means sends the registered mail address on the target file to either the email transmission means of the system itself or the email transmission means of the computer itself. In addition, the electronic mail is automatically transmitted, and the date and time of transmission is registered in the storage means as electronic mail transmission history information.

Access management means, when a potential customer who has received an e-mail from this system accesses a user-side website, the access history is stored in the storage means as access data and can be searched from the e-mail address search means I will provide a.

Specifically, the access management means stores an access history in a log server area provided in a storage means in a computer connected to a web server that has built a user-side website or in an external storage means, and searches for an email address. When an access history inquiry is received from the means, only access to the user-side website from the link to which the unique identifier corresponding to the registered mail address is added is extracted and a search result is returned. Thereby, the user can specify the access history to the user-side website by the recipient of the e-mail for each registered e-mail address. Such an access history search can be realized by, for example, a method of providing an SQL server function in the access management means and searching the log server area using the registered mail address as a key.

Next, the invention described in claim 2 is the e-mail marketing support system according to claim 1, wherein the e-mail address collection unit has (1) a single or a plurality of keywords set by the user. A collection method for searching customer websites using a search engine and further searching the hit websites as a search result to collect email addresses; (2) Webs specified by single or multiple URLs specified by the user A collection method that collects e-mail addresses by searching the site and (3) a collection method that collects e-mail addresses by searching the source code of a specific website entered by the user can be executed. It is characterized by.

The mail address collecting method (1) is as described in the description of the invention described in claim 1. On the other hand, as mentioned above, businesses that can be potential customers for their products and services generally belong to a specific industry, and many potential customers are listed on websites of related organizations in that industry. It can be expected to exist together.

(2) The email address collection method is as follows. If such an organization's website has been identified in advance, the email address can be searched directly within the organization's website without using a search engine. Is a way to collect. In this case, the user inputs a specific URL on the “acquisition condition screen” and collects all e-mail addresses existing in the website. In addition, some organization websites do not list the email addresses of potential customers who are members, but may include the URL of each member's website. In this case, it is efficient to collect only e-mail addresses by searching only the listed websites without using a search engine. Therefore, the e-mail address collecting means can select e-mail addresses and URLs as collection targets, first collect only URLs posted in a specific website and register them in the storage means as a URL list, and then It is configured to enable a two-stage collection method of sequentially accessing a website of registered URLs on a URL list designated by a user and collecting mail addresses.

The e-mail address collection method (3) uses the source code display function of the web browser in advance when a large number of e-mail addresses and URLs are posted in the form of, for example, a “member list” on a web page of an organization. Copy the html source code of the displayed web page, paste it into the “acquisition condition screen” of the email address collection means and enter it as a search target, search the html source code, and efficiently send a large number of email addresses and It is made possible by configuring so that URLs can be collected.

Next, the invention described in claim 3 is the e-mail marketing support system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the e-mail address collecting means searches the website, The search is performed within the limit range until the e-mail address is found in order from the top page to the lower page, and the number of links to be searched can be limited for each web page below the second layer.

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in mail address collection software, it has been generally possible to limit the keyword search results by a search engine by setting an upper limit on the number of search result pages to be collected. The search engine outputs a huge number of search results in order from the web pages that are highly relevant to the search keyword. Therefore, if only a certain amount of web pages are not collected from the top of the search results, the processing time will be excessive. However, the lower the rank, the less accurate the usefulness of the email address, and the less efficient.

On the other hand, as described above, a website generally has a hierarchical structure in which a large number of pages are linked hierarchically with a top page as a first hierarchy. There are many html links to the second hierarchy on the top page, and there are many links to the third hierarchy in the second hierarchy of each link destination. Therefore, in order to obtain an email address from a website that is not listed on the top page and is listed on any of the pages below the second level, the email address acquisition means must have all levels. It needs to be configured to search.

  Here, if the e-mail address acquisition means tries to search all the web pages of each layer for all the layers of the web page, the processing time is enormous and inefficient. Therefore, the mail address acquisition means of the present invention is configured to limit the number of search result pages by the search engine and arbitrarily limit the number of html links to be searched for each web page below the second hierarchy. . As a result, when the e-mail address acquisition means fails to find an e-mail address on the top page for each of the search engine high-order websites, a predetermined number of web pages in the second and lower layers are sequentially added. If you still do not find your email address, go to the next website search. Therefore, the processing speed is improved as compared with searching all pages of all websites, and as a result, more efficient collection of e-mail addresses becomes possible.

  Next, the invention described in claim 4 is the electronic mail marketing support system according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the mail address search unit is configured to provide a user for each registered mail address. The inputted additional information can be registered and updated in the access data.

  To effectively send step emails to potential customers, keep track of potential customer responses to the first email sent to your registered email address and identify potential customers that could be converted. It is important to. Here, in response to a potential customer, in addition to accessing the user-side website, inquiries by e-mail or telephone to the user side can be considered. In addition, these reactions may cause contact from the user side to potential customers, such as sending individual materials and sending materials. Keep track of the contact history between these users and potential customers, and evaluate the status of each potential customer by associating it with the registered email address and delivering the appropriate content at the right time. It can be expected to effectively pass on potential customers.

  Therefore, in the present invention, the access management means can be registered in the storage means as contact history data in which the contact history information between the user side and the potential customer is associated with the registered mail address, and can be searched by the mail address search means. The configuration is as follows.

Specifically, when a potential customer replies to an e-mail received or sends an inquiry e-mail from a registered e-mail address, refer to the e-mail server for the access management means for each registered e-mail address. The reception date is recorded in the contact history data. In addition, when a phone call occurs between a user and a potential customer or when materials are sent from the user to the potential customer, the person in charge of the user associates the registered email address of the potential customer with the date and time Is entered on the “registration data correction screen” provided by the access management means, and the contact history data can be updated together with the rank of the potential customer.

  As described above, the mail transmission history information, access history information, and contact history information are continuously updated and stored in the storage unit. The e-mail address search means is configured such that all of these pieces of history information can be searched in association with the registered e-mail address, for example, elapse from the e-mail transmission date or the access date to the user side website by the potential customer. New target file by searching for the number of days, the number of e-mail transmissions and website accesses, the presence / absence of inquiry mail, other contact contents and elapsed days, user rank, registered e-mail addresses that meet various setting conditions Can be created. As described above, the user can create a project file for sending an e-mail by designating this new target file, and can send a new e-mail to a potential customer who can be expected to convert to a customer.

  Finally, the invention described in claim 5 is a computer program for causing a computer connected to the Internet to execute the electronic mail marketing support system according to any one of claims 1 to 4.

  The e-mail marketing support system according to the present invention not only enables simultaneous transmission of e-mails to registered e-mail addresses collected and registered from the websites of potential customers, but also by potential customers induced by transmitted e-mails. The user's website access history is automatically registered, and the subsequent contact history between the user and the potential customer can also be registered, and these history information can be managed in an integrated and integrated manner. Can classify, evaluate, and extract registered email addresses, and send step emails with the optimal content to potential customers at the optimal timing, thereby improving the efficiency of converting potential customers into customers.

  In addition, the e-mail marketing support system provided in the e-mail marketing support system according to the present invention performs a search until the e-mail address is sequentially found in the web page of the lower layer following the link from the first layer of the potential customer's website, Moreover, by making it possible to limit the number of page links to be searched for each web page below the second level, the success rate of collecting email addresses for search websites can be increased and the processing time can be shortened. There is an effect of improving.

  In addition, the e-mail marketing support system included in the e-mail marketing support system according to the present invention is not only a collection method for collecting e-mail addresses from the website of potential customers acquired using a search engine, but also within a specific website. Because it is possible to collect from the list of e-mail addresses and URLs existing below the second level, the effect of enabling large-scale and efficient collection from websites such as organizations to which many potential customers belong Play.

  Hereinafter, the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings showing embodiments thereof. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing an outline of a system configuration according to an embodiment of the present invention.

  The system according to the present embodiment includes a system main body 1, a storage unit 2, an input / output unit 3, and a user-side website 4. The system main body 1 functions by being installed in a computer such as a server or a personal computer connected to the Internet that includes the storage unit 2 and the input / output unit 3, but the installation destination may be the storage unit 2 of the computer. The web server on which the user-side website 4 is constructed may be provided in the computer, but may be provided outside the computer and connected to the system via a network. The computer has an electronic mail transmission / reception means (not shown), and is used for transmission / reception of electronic mail between the user and the potential customer via the system.

  The storage unit 2 can create, save, and update the mail address file 50, the target file 51, the project file 52, and the mail transmission history 60, the access history 61, the mail reception history 62, and the input data 63 by the system body. It is assumed that it has an area.

  The system has a function of an SQL server, and the mail transmission history 60, the access history 61, the mail reception history 62, and the input data 63 are associated with each other using the registered mail address registered in the mail address file 50 as a key. It is assumed that a relational database that enables retrieval and processing such as extraction, sorting, combining, and analysis is configured.

  FIG. 2 is a system flow diagram showing the overall flow of information input / output and processing procedures in the email marketing support system 0 according to the present embodiment. First of all, a part related to the processing procedure of collecting mail addresses will be described.

  In the figure, # 100 to 105 indicate the mail address collection processing procedure. On the “mail address collection environment setting screen” provided by the mail address collection means 10, the user performs collection environment settings for “number of search pages”, “search hierarchy”, and “search limit by hierarchy” (# 100). FIG. 3 shows an example of a “mail address collection environment setting screen” in the present embodiment.

“Number of search pages” is a setting for designating the number of web pages to be collected as a search result of a keyword search by the search engine 6. When the search engine 6 displays the search results on the screen, 10 search pages are displayed. In the setting for displaying the search results, if the “number of search pages” is set to “50”, 500 web pages from the top of the search results are collected. In general, in search engines, the lower the search results of a keyword search, the lower the relevance to the keyword, and the tendency of the hit website to decrease as a potential customer. The address collection processing time is also increased, and on the contrary, the collection efficiency is lowered. Therefore, the “number of search pages” can be limited by a keyword. In addition, it is generally more efficient to collect e-mail addresses when multiple web pages are searched with a plurality of keywords than when multiple web pages are searched with a single keyword.

  “Search Hierarchy” is a web page where the top page of the website to be collected is the first hierarchy, the linked pages in the first hierarchy are the second hierarchy, and the linked pages in the second hierarchy are the third hierarchy. Corresponds to the site hierarchy. The “hierarchical search limit number” is used to limit the number of link destination pages in the lower hierarchy to be collected for the mail address for each hierarchy. In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 3, the “search hierarchy” can be designated up to the fourth hierarchy, and the number of linked pages can be designated numerically for each hierarchy below the second hierarchy. For example, as shown in the figure, when the search limit number by level of the second hierarchy is designated as “5”, the mail address collecting means 10 cannot search and find the mail address in the top page which is the first hierarchy. When searching for the second hierarchy, even if there are 10 links to the second hierarchy in the top page, only the five linked pages from the front are the search targets for the second hierarchy. If the search target includes a large number of large-scale websites with many links, the processing time will increase significantly if all the hierarchies are searched for all websites, resulting in the collection of email addresses. In order to avoid this because of the reduced efficiency, it is effective to allow such a restriction.

In this embodiment, as shown in FIG. 3, a mail account used for sending an e-mail from the user side, a mail address and other outgoing mail settings, and a POP3 server used for receiving an electronic mail by the user and other received mail settings are also set. This “mail address collection environment setting screen” is configured to be performed. In this embodiment, when the setting on this screen is completed, the screen transitions to the “email address collection condition setting screen”.

  FIG. 4 shows an example of a “mail address collection condition setting screen” in the present embodiment. In this embodiment, first, either “search engine” or “i-town page” can be selected as the search engine setting (# 101), which determines which of the mail address collection means should use for keyword search. decide. In the present embodiment, the “search engine” is limited to one type, but a plurality of search engines may be selectable.

  Next, the user sets a collection method (# 102). In this embodiment, the keyword collecting method is “acquisition from keyword” and “acquisition from keyword list” (hereinafter, # 102A), “acquisition from URL list (# 102B)”, “acquisition from URL ( # 102C) "and" Acquisition from html source (# 102D) "can be selected.

Among these, “acquisition from keyword” and “acquisition from keyword list” (hereinafter referred to as # 102A) are methods for collecting e-mail addresses by sequentially searching web pages hit by a keyword search in a search engine. “Acquisition from URL list (# 102B)” is a method of collecting e-mail addresses by sequentially accessing each website from a list of URLs of potential customer websites collected in advance without using a search engine. It is. “Acquisition from URL (# 102C)” is a method of inputting a URL of a specific website, searching the website, and collecting e-mail addresses or URLs. “Acquisition from html source (# 102D)” is a method in which the html source of a specific website is directly input by copy and paste, and the e-mail address or URL is collected by searching the source code. When the user executes “acquisition from URL list (# 102B)”, a URL list acquired in advance is input, or “acquisition from URL (# 102C)” or “from html source” is first entered. Acquisition (# 102D) "is performed to collect URLs from a specific website to create a URL list, which is input and executed.

  “Acquisition from keyword” is a setting in which the mail address collecting means 10 performs a search by a single keyword or an AND search by a plurality of keywords when the search engine 6 is used, and the user directly selects a single or a plurality of keywords. Input and execute (# 103).

“Acquisition from keyword list” is a setting for performing an AND search using keywords described in the keyword list created and saved in advance by the user. The user designates a keyword list file from the “Browse” button. And execute (# 103). Searches based on these keywords are not limited to potential customer industries, but are selected when collecting e-mail addresses from a wide range of websites, and may be related to the name and characteristics of the company's products or services and other potential customers. Specify a simple phrase as a keyword.

  FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the processing procedure of “acquisition from keyword (list) (# 102A)” in the mail address collection method. When the user inputs a keyword or a keyword list to execute a search, the e-mail address collecting means 10 accesses the search engine set in the search engine setting (# 101), performs a keyword search, and hits as a search result. For the top N web pages, mail address collection is started in order from the top (# 103). In general, the web page that hits the top is likely to be the top page of a potential customer's website.

The e-mail address collecting means 10 first searches for the e-mail address in the top page, which is the first hierarchy, and if found, acquires it, ends the first search, and moves to the second search. . If not found, search all the second-level web pages that have html links in the top page in order. If you find an e-mail address, get it and end the search. Move on to the search. If it is not found even in the second hierarchy, the web page in the third hierarchy is searched sequentially by using the number of html links existing in the second hierarchy up to the number specified in the above-mentioned “search limit by hierarchy”. If the address is found, it is acquired, the search is terminated, and the second search is started. Thereafter, the search is continued up to the fourth layer until the e-mail address is acquired in the same procedure. When the e-mail address cannot be found, the first search is terminated and the search for the second web page is started. Repeat for all web pages.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the processing procedure of “acquisition from URL list (# 102B)” in the mail address collection method. In this collection method, when URLs of a plurality of websites to be collected are acquired in advance, the URLs are input on the “e-mail address collection condition setting screen”, and an e-mail address is used without using a search engine. This is selected when the collection unit 10 directly accesses the website and collects email addresses.
For example, when URLs of a large number of member companies (potential customers) are posted on the top page (first layer) of a website of an affiliated organization of a specific industry as illustrated in FIG. By inputting the URL of the top page and executing it, it is possible to efficiently access a large number of e-mail addresses by sequentially accessing the websites of all member companies that are automatically posted.

  Specifically, as the first step, the URL of a website such as an organization is directly entered in the “acquire from URL” input field of the “email address collection condition setting screen” and the “acquire URL” menu is displayed. select. Then, a search for the top page (first layer) of the website of the organization or the like is executed, URLs in the top page are continuously collected, and this is registered in the storage means 2 as a URL list. Next, as a second stage, the URL list registered in “Acquisition from URL list” on the “Mail address collection condition setting screen” is designated by the “Browse” button, and mail address collection is executed. As a result, the e-mail address collecting means 10 sequentially accesses the web page on the URL list, that is, the top page of the website of the potential customer who is a member of the organization, and thereafter “acquired from the keyword (list) (# 102A) ", the lower hierarchy is searched sequentially until the mail address is found, and this search is repeated until the search for all URLs is completed, and the found mail address is registered in the mail address file 50 (# 104).

  “Acquisition from URL (# 102C)” is configured such that “acquisition of URL” and “collection of e-mail address” can be selected. One of the search hierarchies “obtained from the first hierarchy” and “obtained from the second hierarchy” can be specified.

  FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure of collecting from a website such as an organization by this “acquisition from URL (# 102C)”. First, in the “acquisition from URL” of the “email address collection condition setting screen”, the URL of the website of the organization or the like is directly input and specified, and “obtained from the top layer (first layer)” and “second layer” Specify one of the search hierarchies "obtain from". When “obtain from top layer (first layer)” is designated (# 102C1), the mail address collecting means 10 searches only the top page of the website, collects the found mail addresses, and creates a mail address file. Register to 50. If “acquire from the second hierarchy” is designated (# 102C2), only the second hierarchy is searched and the mail addresses are collected and registered in the same manner.

  Depending on the website of an industry group or the like, a list (name list) of member companies may be listed on the top page as illustrated in FIG. 7 described above, or a link linked from the top page as illustrated in FIG. In some cases, it is listed on the second level in the form of a “Member List”. With the above-described configuration, the user can select and specify a search hierarchy according to the posting position of the member supplier list on such a website, avoiding useless search processing and efficiently sending a large number of e-mail addresses in a short time. It can be collected.

  FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a mail address collection processing procedure in “acquisition from html source (# 102D)”. Here, first, the web page to be collected is displayed by the web browser, and then the source code is displayed by using the “display html source” menu of the browser. Next, copy and paste the source code directly into the “acquisition from html source” input field, let the mail address collection means 10 sequentially search the html source, and register the found mail addresses in the mail address file 50. Let In this embodiment, various conditions such as a character string including “@” in addition to a <mail ::> tag on the source code can be set as a “group keyword” in advance as a search condition when collecting e-mail addresses. This makes it possible to conduct more detailed searches and improve the collection efficiency of email addresses. In the present embodiment, the URL in the source code can also be collected by this “acquisition from html source”. In this case, “URL” is selected as the collection target, and the collection target is selected in the input field. The collection process is executed by inputting the URL of the first layer of the web page.

  FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example of a screen on which the mail address search unit 20 outputs and displays 50 mail address files in which the mail addresses collected by the above collection method are registered.

  Next, returning to FIG. 2, processing procedures (# 200 to # 503) after “create target file” of the e-mail marketing support system 0 according to the present embodiment will be described.

  When the potential customer e-mail addresses are collected and registration in the e-mail address file 50 is completed by the above processing, the user then performs target file creation condition setting (# 200). FIG. 12 shows an example of a “target file creation screen” in the email marketing support system 0 of the present embodiment.

  In the target file 51, an e-mail to be described later is sent from the e-mail address of the potential customer on the e-mail address file 50 (# 401), and the e-mail address search means 10 sets the e-mail address to be specified as the transmission destination in the project file 52. This file is extracted. The extraction conditions are “keyword (specified when collecting email addresses)”, “registration date of (mail address)”, “date of sending email”, “number of times of sending email”, “(from potential customers) Date of access to the user's website), “(same) number of visits”, “date of inquiry (via email from potential customer to user)”, “(same) number of queries”, “(user evaluation) “Rank of potential customer”), “whether or not (from user to potential customer) contacts”, and the like. For example, 1) E-mail address whose registration date is today and the keyword is “Design Office”, 2) E-mail address that has already sent an e-mail but still has no access to the user website 4 3) Past E-mail addresses that have accessed the user's website more than a predetermined number of times can be extracted, and step e-mails are sent only to potential customers who are likely to be converted into customers due to deep contact. Or sending campaign emails to potential customers who meet certain conditions.

  The target file creation means 20 creates a target file 51 by naming the search results obtained by the above processing (# 201), and registers it in the storage means 2 (# 202). As a result, potential customer groups with various attributes can be registered as the respective target files 51, and the target file 51 can be updated and re-registered by reflecting the result of access analysis by the access management means 40 described later. The target file 51 reflecting the latest contact history information makes it possible to send an e-mail according to the purpose.

  Next, the user creates a project file (# 301). FIG. 13 shows an example of a “project file creation condition setting screen” in the email marketing support system 0 of the present embodiment.

  In the project file creation condition setting (# 300), the target file 51 as a group of e-mail destination mail addresses is designated, the e-mail to be sent, the transmission conditions, etc. are created as the project file 52 (# 301), and storage means 2 (# 302). The project file 52 should be created by setting the “sender email address”, “send start date”, and “send start time”, entering the “subject” and “email body”, and automatically inserting them in the “email body”. “Forwarding URL” for guiding the recipient (potential customer) to access the website 4 on the user side, and “inquiry keyword” for the recipient (potential customer) inquiring the user by e-mail To do. At this time, the project creation means 30 automatically adds a unique identifier associated with the destination mail address to the “forwarding destination URL”. As a result, when the recipient (potential customer) clicks the “forwarding URL” on the body of the email and accesses the user-side website 4, the present system sends the access for each recipient (potential customer) to the email address. Can be recognized and registered in the access history 61.

  When the above processing is completed, the user issues a mail transmission instruction (# 400). FIG. 14 shows an example of a “mail transmission screen” in the email marketing support system 0 of the present embodiment. This system uses a mail transmission / reception means (mailer) installed in the system itself or a mailer of the computer itself to send an e-mail to the e-mail address on the target file 51 (# 401) and send the result of the e-mail. The history 60 is registered in the storage means 2 and the processing procedure up to the e-mail transmission is completed.

  Next, a processing procedure on the system side when a potential customer who has received an e-mail accesses a user-side website will be described.

  When the potential customer clicks the “forwarding URL” on the received electronic mail, the potential customer is first connected to the access management means 40 of the present system via the Internet 5 (# 500). The access management means 40 has a function of a log server (not shown) for generating an access log, and accesses from potential customers are registered in the storage means 2 as an access history 61 in association with an email address based on the unique identifier. Above (# 501), the potential customer is made to access the user-side website 4, and the potential customer browses it (# 502).

  As described above, the access management means 40 also has a function of an SQL server (not shown), and according to the access search (# 504) by the user's mail address search means 20, the date and time of access, the number of accesses, etc. Based on an arbitrary search condition, a search result using the mail address as a key from the access history 61, that is, an access analysis (# 503) to return as an extracted mail address group is made possible. In FIG. 15, the access history 61 is reflected in the search condition, the mail address having the access count of one or more is extracted for each specific project file 52, and the display is rearranged in the descending order of the access count. This shows an example of the transition of the “mail address search screen” in the case. As a result, the user can grasp potential customers who are frequently accessed, that is, who are highly interested in the user-side website, and can extract them as step mail transmission destinations. FIG. 16 is a diagram illustrating an example of an output result in which “response number” and “response rate” are displayed by summing up responses (responses) from the access status of potential customers to e-mail transmission for each project. Thereby, the user can easily grasp a project with good response, and can improve the setting conditions of the project at the time of step mail transmission.

As a result, the user creates a new target file 51 reflecting the access history 61 by the mail address search means 20, creates a new project file 52 by the project creation means 30, and transmits a step mail. It becomes possible. As described above, the user can effectively transmit step mails to potential customers who have been guided by the transmitted electronic mail and have accessed the user-side website 4 based on the access status.

  On the other hand, when the potential customer sends an inquiry mail to the user, the system registers the history by the following processing and reflects it in the target file 51. When a mail transmission / reception means (not shown) of this system receives a mail from a customer (# 600), the history is registered in the storage means 2 as a mail reception history 62, and can be searched in units of mail addresses by the SQL server. It is. The user designates “inquiry date (by e-mail from the potential customer to the user)” and “(the same) number of inquiries” on the “target file creation screen” of the e-mail address search means 20, so that the mail reception history 62 can be reflected in the creation of a new target file 51.

  In addition, in this system, contact by analog means that does not go through the network occurs, such as when a potential customer makes an inquiry, requests for materials, etc. to the user by telephone, or when the user sends materials to the potential customer. If the user evaluates the rank of the potential customer by comprehensively considering the contact situation with the potential customer, it is input each time and registered in the storage means 2 as the input data 63, and sent to the mail. The mail address file 50 can be individually updated by the address search means 20.

  FIG. 18 is a diagram showing an example of a “registered data correction screen” in the email marketing support system 0 of the present embodiment. This screen is configured to be usable by the e-mail address search means 20, and the user inputs “rank”, “presence / absence of communication”, and “information memo” in units of e-mail addresses and inputs registration data as input data 63. Can be updated. As a result, if the e-mail address is extracted by including the “rank” and “contact presence / absence” of the potential customer in the extraction condition when the target file 51 is created, the target file 51 is given priority to the potential customer who is likely to be converted to a customer. Step mail can be sent, and the effectiveness of email marketing can be improved.

As described above, the e-mail marketing support system 0 according to the present invention has been described with reference to the embodiment. However, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and is within the scope of the purpose of the improvement or the technical idea of the present invention. Can be improved or changed within the technical scope of the present invention.

Schematic diagram showing the outline of the system configuration of this system System flow diagram of this system Figure showing an example of the "Email address collection environment setting screen" Figure showing an example of the "Email address collection condition setting screen" Process flow diagram of “acquisition from keyword (list) (# 102A)” Process flow diagram of “acquisition from URL list (# 102B)” A diagram showing an example of the first level of websites of related organizations Process flow diagram of “acquisition from URL (# 102C)” Diagram showing an example of the second level of websites of related organizations Process flow diagram of “acquisition from html source (# 102D)” Figure showing an example of an email address file Figure showing an example of the "Target file creation screen" Figure showing an example of the "Project file creation condition setting screen" Figure showing an example of the "Email Send Screen" A figure showing an example of the transition of the "email address search screen" Figure showing an example of the response count result display by project A figure showing an example of the "Registered data modification screen"

0 Email marketing support system 1 System main body 2 Storage means 3 Input / output means 4 User side website 5 Internet 6 Search engine 7 Potential customer side website 8 Website operator (potential customer)
10 mail address collection means 20 mail address search means 30 project creation means 40 access management means 50 mail address file 51 target file 52 project file 60 mail transmission history 61 access history 62 mail reception history 63 input data

Claims (5)

  E-mail address collecting means capable of collecting e-mail addresses from websites of potential customers on the Internet and registering them in the e-mail address file, and target file obtained by extracting registered e-mail addresses from the e-mail address file according to search conditions set by the user Email address search means that can create emails and email data including links to user websites with unique identifiers added to each registered email address and send email to the registered email address in the target file A project creation means capable of generating a project file for saving, and access history information from the potential customer who sent the e-mail to the user-side website is stored as access data, and a registered mail address is stored by the unique identifier. E-mail marketing support system characterized in that it consists of an access management means for enabling retrieval from the mail address retrieving means in association with.   The e-mail address collecting means (1) searches a potential customer's website having a single keyword or a plurality of keywords set by the user by a search engine, and further searches the hit website as a search result to obtain an e-mail address. Collection method for collecting, (2) Collection method for collecting e-mail addresses by searching in a website specified by a single or a plurality of URLs designated by the user, (3) Source of a specific website input by the user The e-mail marketing support system according to claim 1, wherein any or all of a collecting method of collecting e-mail addresses by searching in a code can be executed.   When searching the website, the e-mail address collecting means searches within a limited range until it finds an e-mail address from the top page to the lower page in order, and searches each web page below the second hierarchy. The electronic mail marketing support system according to claim 1, wherein the number of page links to be performed can be limited.   The electronic mail according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the e-mail address search means can register and update additional information input by a user in the access data for each registered e-mail address. Email marketing support system.   A computer program for causing a computer connected to the Internet to execute the e-mail marketing support system according to any one of claims 1 to 4.

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