PawnMaster has an E-mail option in the Tools section. To use this utility, you should start asking customers for a valid e-mail address. Although I do not recommend making it a required field, as this will force your employees to enter “None” and PawnMaster will attempt to send an e-mail to non-existing accounts.

When you are ready to send out some e-mails go to tools and select Email Customers. Choose a filter such as Birth Date Range and check one or more boxes to the right. Checking either of the two export options will create an export file. Checking the box for “Send Email” will open Microsoft Outlook and populate the BBC field with the selected e-mail addresses. Microsoft Outlook must be installed on the PC and Outlook Express is not supported.

For most customers export to CSV would be the best choice. The export file can then be imported directly into many e-mail clients, opened in Excel or even Notepad. Many shops will simply send this file to their e-mail marketing service. There are several and Data Age does not endorse any service over another.

The e-mail addresses can then be copied and pasted in the BBC field. It is very important to use BBC (Blind Carbon Copy) because the recipients should never be able to see the e-mail addresses of your other customers. There are also new FCC requirements for an option to unsubscribe, for this reason, an e-mail marketing service may be a good choice, as they will handle any unsubscribes.