This article explains how to create, schedule, and send a customer mailing. That includes both campaigns and newsletters as functionally in the system they work the same.
Getting Started
To begin creating your mailing, navigate to the Mailings module.
Next, either click the Campaigns or Newsletters tab. Typically if you're sending something more marketing or sales oriented, that would qualify as a campaign. If the mailing is more informational, that may more likely qualify as a newsletter. Functionally in the system, they work the same.
Now click new to be taken to the following screen.
Campaign Details
First you'll need to give the mailing a Title (1). This isn't customer facing, just a title for your own purposes and how the mailing will appear in the mailing list.
Next, you'll choose a Send From (2). This is the from address your mailing recipients will see. If you don't see an appropriate send from address, go to setup - company profile and then change the reply to and friendly name in the customer emails section.
Once your send from has been set, you'll choose your Send To (3). Your available options are "All Customers", "All Customers with Web Accounts", and "Selected Lists". All customers includes every customer in your database with an email address. All customers with web accounts will send to anyone who has setup a web account with a password (not applicable to all clients). Selected lists will allow you to select specific lists to include and exclude from your mailing. Please note that Selected Lists allows you to select from your Customer Lists, Subscriber Groups, Loyalty Programs and Clubs not just Customer Lists - we had to give it a name and so we chose "Selected Lists."
Target Club (4) is for those clients who use our club functionality. If you're mailing to a specific club, select it in this list if you would like to set macros in your mailing (macros are covered in more detail later). If you select a target club be sure that your list (if not using a club as a list) only has members of that target club. If you select lists that have customers that aren't members of that Target Club any club membership macros you insert will show no data. This Target Club is what ties the club membership macros to the appropriate customer and membership data.
Next, please click Select A Template (5) and choose Blank Template. To import a template, select "Blank Template" and then click the "Import Design" button. There, you may paste in HTML code for your email as designed by the web designer of your own choosing.
Important: Be sure to always insert a system macro for customers to be able to opt out. See the Opt Out Link section below. A custom opt out page is also possible. See here on creating a custom opt out page.
Once you've completed the above, you're ready to move on to entering and formatting your content.
Composing Your Mailing
Once you've selected a template and are ready to begin composing your mailing, click any of the green highlighted areas to begin.
To begin, I'll enter a subject line in the pink "Put Subject Here" field and then click the green area to begin entering content.
After clicking the green content area, you'll see the editor open. Many of the options it provides should be familiar if you've used Word or other content editing programs. You can select a section of text and change its font, size, make it bold or underlined, center it, etc.
Click here to access a full guide on using the content editor.
Once you've completed your content or are at a stopping point for now, click save at the top
Inserting Macros
You can add dynamic content such as the customer name, account details, a system opt out link, and more to your mailings. The macros or dynamic content available to you may vary depending on which type of email you are creating. You can also set a default value for some of the macros such as Customer First Name - if this field isn't populated in the customer record the default value (such as Loyal Friend) would be used in the email to that customer.
To insert a macro, right click in the content area or subject of your mailing and choose "Insert Macros".
This will bring up a screen that allows you to choose which macros you'd like to insert. They are divided into sections, referring to the screenshot below you'll see tabs on the top "Customer", "Club Membership", "Club", and "My Company". Each of these is divided into subsections on the left side. The "Club" and "Club Membership" sections should only be used if a target club was set for the mailings, as outlined earlier in this article. To select a macro, just check its box and then click OK.
Once you've inserted the macro, you'll see bracketed text like in the below screenshot. When the customer receives your mailing, they'll see their actual info referenced by the macro rather than the bracketed text. For example, if a customer named John Doe were to receive the below mailing, they'd see "John Doe" rather than {Customer.FirstName} {Customer.LastName}.
Opt Out Link
Important: Always include a system-generated opt out link, or else your emails may be flagged as spam. A missing opt out link is the the #1 cause for blacklisting. Here is how to do so:
1) Highlight the text that will function as your opt out link. For example: "Unsubscribe" at the bottom of your message.
2) Click the URL button in the toolbar at the top:
3) Enable the Opt Out option only. This will generate a customer-specific opt out link for every email sent automatically so the system knows who clicks the link to unsubscribe:
Testing
Once you've entered your content, it is a good idea to do a test mailing. To do so, save and close out of your mailing and then open it again. You'll then be able to click the Send Sample button at the top to send yourself a sample. This is a good way to see how your mailing looks prior to sending it to your customers. The sample will be very close to what your customers will receive when the mailing is actually sent.
Another recommended way to test is by creating a "seed list" or a list of internal staff that you can send the email to after viewing the sample email. This will show how the actual email will look for your customers. Be sure that if you are using a target club and club membership macros to create memberships for those customers on your seed list too for information to display correctly.
Once you're happy with your mailing and are ready to send, you'll need to select which lists to send to (if applicable) and schedule delivery.
**Be sure to test all of your hyperlinks whether they are links on text or images. It can be very easy to presume that everything is set up correctly, but testing each link is the only way to know for sure. If you make changes to your mailing, send a sample email again and test again. Better yet send to a seed list again and test again.**
Selecting Lists
If you've selected to send to all customers or all customers with web accounts, you may disregard this section. Otherwise, if you chose to send to "selected lists", you'll need to do so. To begin, on the left side of your mailing creation screen, click "Step 2 - Select Lists"
On this screen you'll see all of your customers lists, subscriber groups, clubs, and membership programs (as applicable). To send to a particular group, click the include box. To choose a particular group that should not be sent to (in the case of crossover between lists) check the exclude box. Once you've selected your list(s), click save.
Verify the Lists You've Selected - We recommend that after saving your selection of lists (and even prior to getting ready to set up when your email will send) that you use the "Selected Lists Only" check box to verify what you have selected.
Simply check the box and click the Search button. This will show you the lists that you have selected. This is a great way to verify who you're sending your email to prior to scheduling the delivery.
Scheduling Delivery
IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT DELIVERY - Please allow sufficient time for delivery of your mailing. All of the emails are not sent out instantly. They are sent out one at a time at a very rapid rate. We do our best to keep this delivery as fast as possible, but the larger the delivery list the longer it may take.
To being scheduling delivery, click "Step 3 - Edit Schedule" on the left side of your mailing creation screen.
To send immediately click Send Now.
To schedule delivery, select a date and time. Next, check the box for "I understand that I am authorizing email be sent to selected customers" and then click enable delivery. Your mailing is now scheduled and you may save and close.
To cancel delivery at any time prior to the scheduled delivery time, return to this screen and click cancel delivery.
A Note About Tracking Clicks
If you copy content from another source be sure to use the editor to set any links as links. While they may appear as links in the body of the email, we strongly suggest using the editor hyperlink icon to set the links. By default the link will have click tracking enabled.
Reviewing Results
Please find an explanation of the columns in the email campaign and newsletter modules below:
# Valid: This is a basic email address formatting check done by Director. Emails with no @ symbol, no .com or .net or what have you, etc. will be excluded from the valid email address count to help improve email blast sanctity as a first step before we even send them off to the email blast provider, SendGrid. Some companies put plain text in the email fields to indicate the customer doesn't want to provide his or her email address, e.g. "No" or "Don't ask," so this could contribute to many email addresses being considered invalid.
# Sent: This is how many were sent of those deemed valid by Director. # Sent and # Valid should always match when the campaign has completed sending them all.
# Delivered: This is a count of recipients whose email servers communicated a successful delivery of the email back to SendGrid (and then us, in turn, in your Director account). Not all recipient email servers will send back this response, so it's not necessarily a fully reliable count when simply confirming all your intended contacts received the email. # Sent would probably be the more critical count to review.
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