NOTE: If you have a CRM connected to Growbots, be mindful that importing prospects into Growbots could trigger that integration and update your current records. For example, if you exported your Salesforce leads and imported them to Growbots, the running campaign will update the leads in your Salesforce based on how you set up the integration.
In addition to the prospects that we provide, you might want to use prospects from sources other than Growbots. No sweat - you can import your own list and facilitate our email automation on prospects from outside of Growbots. Here’s a tutorial that will guide you through importing your own contacts:
Step 1 - Create an Import campaign
Create a CSV file. The only required field it needs to have is email, but we strongly recommend including other fields, such as location, first_name, last_name, company_domain or company_name. You can use this sample CSV file as a template.
Go to the Campaigns section and click on Add new campaign and choose the option to use your own contacts:
Once you click Upload CSV file, choose the CSV you’ve created and confirm your choice.
NOTE: you can also import prospects to an All-in-one campaign. In the Prospecting section of the campaign you can use the "Import CSV" option. If the New contacts list is empty, then this option is in the middle of the page. If you have some prospects there, click on "Generate more prospects" and the option will show up.
Step 2 - Import preview
You can quickly take a look at the data to make sure that you've chosen the right file for the importing.
Step 3 - Import mapping
In this step, you can change your mapping. Growbots will automatically match some of the headers in your file to fields in Growbots, but make sure to check if the matching's correct and adjust the field if necessary:
As you can see on the screenshot above, it's possible to assign a default timezone for the whole batch of imported prospects. If your prospects have several different timezones, be sure to provide accurate data to determine the timezone for all the prospects. The best way to do that is by providing a timezone column in your file with the location data (preferably in the format "Europe/London", "America/New York").
If you don't provide the default timezone for the import, or the timezone info for all your prospects, the messages will be sent in PST.
Step 4 - Import summary
This screen will include the information about the status of your import - whether your prospects imported and if not, which ones didn't and why. Here are the messages that you may encounter on this screen:
Successfully loaded to Growbots
Once the imported file is mapped, you will be given a summary of the import. Here are the possible messages about your import:
Everything is a-ok - your prospects have been imported!
Already loaded to Growbots
The prospects have either been imported before in some other campaign or you’ve generated them via Growbots in another campaign. You can import the prospects once again with updated data (if eg. something changed in the file), and they will disappear from the previous campaign, and appear in the new one. You need to:
Unfold Please review the prospects and data to import option.
Mark all the prospects and data that you want to be imported from the file.
Make sure that the box by Update selected data option is ticked.
Move to the next step by clicking on Go to prospects list.
NOTE: Updating prospect's company data will overwrite it for all prospects from this company, even the ones that are not in the uploaded file!
Required field missing
That means that some (or all) of your prospects are lacking email data in the file. If your file has email addresses, then review which header is mapped with email field when reimporting the file.
Prospects are missing time zone
When you import prospects to Growbots and include information about their location, we'll send messages in prospect's time zone. You can also set a default timezone for the whole batch of imported prospects. We're showing some extra information about missing time zones for prospects in the import summary. Thanks to that you'll be able to react quickly and add proper time zones before sending emails.
Step 5 - Verify emails
Once you click the "Go to prospects list" button, you'll land on the Prospecting step. Before you start going through the list and deciding which prospects you'd like to contact, it might be a good idea to verify their emails first.
You can do that by simply clicking the Verify emails button on the right-hand side:
Note: Please keep in mind that for now, this feature is only available in new import campaigns & only on paid plans.
Email verification is really important when importing your own database - if your data is not high quality, large amounts of bounces can damage your reputation, so it's good to remove the inactive emails from the campaign.
Step 6 - choose your prospects
Once the emails are verified, you can go through all your imported prospects and accept/reject them. You can read more about it in the next article!