Basis is Bourne's in-house HTML email tool. It's been designed to dramatically cut the cost of producing high-quality multi-lingual marketing communications, and we're constantly developing and enhancing it. I just thought I'd take a moment to quickly cover some of the new features that will be making their debut in the next version of Basis - version 4.

Any variant - anytime

Basis was designed around the idea of multi-lingual email. Same content - quickly localised into target markets. It loves dealing with prices in multiple currencies, instantly translating key phrases from its library, and seamlessly handling country specific links everywhere from yoursite.ad (Andorra) to yoursite.zm (Zambia). In Version 4 we've broken out from just countries to handle any combination of variants and variables. Basis' content library can be stacked up with text and links, and will automatically find the most appropriate content for your audience - whether you're looking to build traditionally by country/language/currency - or whether you want to build for different income level/city/favourite colour/whateveryoulike.

Shared Bulletins

Now a single company operating across multiple continents with different divisions can instantly share content across domains and business units. Content can be added to a shared Global pool, automatically localising into its target markets when cloned. Share and distribute your content further and faster. Cloning a bulletin from London to Sydney - complete with updated links, Ts and Cs and more - just became a one click operation.

Import from ZIP

A popular request from clients was the ability to use Basis' integrated campaign monitoring tools, international sign-off, and aggregated reporting features with emails developed as vanilla HTML. As usual, we've gone a few steps further than the basic request, and added the ability to build mix and match email bulletins. Import existing HTML into eshots, supplement them for different locales with Basis-built material including other mail and landing pages.

People-level Reporting

Drill down instantly to the level of individual links (aggregated across target country/language combinations) to see who clicked on what. Ideal for identifying leads and monitoring your campaign success.

List Management

Just one of the many areas of Basis that has been yet further refined in version 4. We've added quick dashboard views to review recent sends, with headline stats and jump links to both the original bulletin, and the final reports.

We're putting the finishing touches on Version 4 at the moment, so keep an eye out for further news.