How To Use The Intergage Bulk Email Facility

Intergage - 2011 How To Use The Intergage Bulk Email Facility Written by Dawn Wooll

CONTENTS How to Use the Intergage Bulk Email Facility... 2 1. Adding an email subscription topic... 3 2. Importing your Existing Contacts... 4 Running the Import... 6 Checking your Import has been Successful... 7 3. Adding a Sign-Up page... 8 4. Adding an Unsubscribe Page... 9 5. Adding the Sign-Up Form to Begin Building a List... 9 6. Unsubscribe Your Two Options... 12 Automatic... 12 Manual... 12 7. Removing Subscribers Manually... 13 8. Creating Your Email... 14 Building your email... 15 9. Test Sending & Checking your email... 16 10. Sending your email... 17 11. Viewing the Tracking Data... 19 What does the tracking data mean?... 19 1

HOW TO USE THE INTERGAGE BULK EMAIL FACILITY If you have never used the Intergage bulk email facility before, these notes will guide you through everything you need from setting up a sign-up page, to sending the email. If you have used, or actively use your bulk email facility then these notes should serve as a helpful support tool. These notes will cover: 1) Adding an email subscription topic 2) Importing your existing contacts 2.1) Running the Import 3) Adding a sign-up page 4) Adding an unsubscribe page 5) Adding the sign-up form to begin building a list 6) Unsubscribe your two options 7) Removing subscribers manually 8) Creating your email 9) Test sending & checking your email 10) Sending your email 11) Viewing the tracking data If you feel that I have missed out something from this document please let me know by emailing me at dwooll@intergage.co.uk, or support@intergage.co.uk. 2

1. ADDING AN EMAIL SUBSCRIPTION TOPIC The first thing you should do is create an email subscription topic. This is what you will either ask people to sign-up to, or import your contacts against or both. You can have as many email subscription topics as you need. Go to the Subscription Topics Manager: Setup Bulk Email Subscription Topics Manager Click on Add Record you will then be taken through to screen pictured below: I. The first thing you need to do is give your email topic a name a common example is Newsletter, but II. III. IV. it can be anything you like e.g. Intergage s Monthly Email News Bulletin. You can add a description of the subject if you wish. You can use this as an opportunity to explain to your perspective subscribers what they can expect from your communications. If you choose to use this use could set the expectations of what your subscribers will receive e.g. frequency of communications, that you won t share their details with other companies etc. Active (ticked by default) this means that this email topic will show up on the sign-up form. If you un-tick the box, your email topic will not appear on the sign-up form, but you will still be able to mail out to users signed up to this topic. NB - Please bear in mind, if you mail out to users subscribed to an inactive topic and you are using an automatic unsubscribe form, your email topic will not be visible, meaning that people will not be able to unsubscribe. If you mail out to users on an inactive subscription topic you will either have to use an email form to allow people to submit their details, or provide an email address so they can contact you and to be removed. Preselect this no longer does anything so please do not worry about this. 3

Once you have created your topic, click Add. You will then see your subscription topic in the listing view, as pictured below: 2. IMPORTING YOUR EXISTING CONTACTS To import your existing contacts, you will need to compile a spread sheet of their information. You may have a CRM which you can export the data from - this is fine. If you are putting together a spread sheet of client information yourself, you will need two columns. These should be headed as Salutation and Email. Please note that they both begin with a capital letter. In the Salutation column you should put the contact s name this is how you want it to appear in the email. If you want to use the contact s first name, ensure that this is all you have in the Salutation field, if you want the contact s full name, including title you should put this in the Salutation field. The Email field is where you should enter the contact s email address. Please see the example below; Salutation Jerry Mrs Smith Julie Sammy Simpson Ozzy Geoff Email jerry@hotmail.co.uk mrs_smith@pcworld.co.uk j.hardy@bt.com ssimpson@yahoo.com old_school_rocker@hotmail.com g.philips@bt.co.uk 4

The excel spread sheet, once complete, should be saved as a csv file, comma delimited. Please see the example below; Save your import file as csv (comma delimited) If you are exporting data from your CRM you may have other information in there as well; Salutation Email Contact Number Postcode Date of Birth Jerry jerry@hotmail.co.uk 01202 555999 BH14 3DS 21/05/1976 Mrs Smith mrs_smith@pcworld.co.uk 02380 156 789 SO15 3WG 12/03/1981 Julie j.hardy@bt.com 01929 568984 BH19 6GD 19/08/1998 Sammy Simpson ssimpson@yahoo.com 7849325765 BH12 3AD Ozzy old_school_rocker@hotmail.com 13/12/1956 Geoff g.philips@bt.co.uk 1202332564 BH15 3DW 06/09/1989 This will still work on your import, as the only two headings and columns which will be read and imported are Salutation and Email. Please check through your import file for gaps in the Email column. Any gaps here will cause the file to error out. It is fine to import a list with gaps in the Salutation column. 5

Please see below for an example: Salutation Email Salutation Email Jerry jerry@hotmail.co.uk Jerry jerry@hotmail.co.uk Mrs Smith mrs_smith@pcworld.co.uk Mrs Smith mrs_smith@pcworld.co.uk Julie j.hardy@bt.com j.hardy@bt.com Sammy Simpson Sammy Simpson ssimpson@yahoo.com Ozzy old_school_rocker@hotmail.com Ozzy old_school_rocker@hotmail.com g.philips@bt.co.uk Geoff g.philips@bt.co.uk RUNNING THE IMPORT Now you have your csv file containing all your contacts, you are ready to import it. Go to the Subscription Topics Manager: Setup Bulk Email Subscription Topics Manager You will then go to the email subscription topic listing where you will see the email topic you recently created; The import button is the icon of the cylinder with the blue arrow. Click on the import icon next to the topic you wish to import your contacts to (if you have more than one subscription topic). You will then see the following screen: 6

You have the option to upload a file, or use an existing file on the server. You need to choose Upload File. Click on Browse, select the file and the click Next. The next screen will inform you that the Bulk Email Subscriber Import is now running. Once the import is completed the screen will change to tell you the import has been successful: Import is now complete. Should you find the import does not run successfully, you will need to check through your data; I. Check there are no gaps in the data II. III. IV. Check that you have the two headings spelt correctly: Salutation, Email Check that these headings first letters are capitalised Check that the file is saved correctly, as csv comma delimited Try the import again. If you still have problems contact support@intergage.co.uk CHECKING YOUR IMPORT HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL If you want to check that your contact data has gone in, go to the User Manager: Tools User Manager Scroll to the bottom and click Search. You can then tick the Subscribed Subject box of the topic you have just imported your contacts to. Then click Search. 7

The number of results that are returned should match the data you have just imported UNLESS there was anyone signed up previously. However, this should act as a good guide for you. 3. ADDING A SIGN-UP PAGE You may want to have an email newsletter sign-up page. This is so you can build lists of contacts through your site. Go to the page manager: Content Page Manager Click on the Add Page icon: Call your page something like sign up or subscribe to indicate the purpose of this page (don t forget this will also be the URL of your page, visible in the address bar of the web browser). You might want to hide the page off of the site menus. Newsletter sign-up pages are not often on the main site menus. If you want to do this, go into the page properties and un-tick the box show on site menus. You might want to use a Call to Action graphic to, firstly, advertise on your site that you provide an email newsletter, and secondly, to have it as a clickable link so visitors can get to the sign-up page. See examples below: 8

4. ADDING AN UNSUBSCRIBE PAGE You will need to have an unsubscribe page. You must, in every email you send, have a link through to an unsubscribe page. Therefore, I would suggest making a child page of the sign-up page and calling this unsubscribe. You can either leave this page showing on the site menus, or remove it. Either way I would suggest ensuring you have a rich text link through to the unsubscribe page, e.g. Already subscribed? If you want to change your subscription, please unsubscribe here. 5. ADDING THE SIGN-UP FORM TO BEGIN BUILDING A LIST To add a sign-up form to your sign-up or subscribe page, you will need to choose the add page item icon: Choose to add the Bulk Email Subscription Item. The next screen you will see allows you to set up your subscription form exactly the way you want it. 9

Let s take a look at the top options: I. Name: For your reference only II. Form Mode: You should choose subscribe a. Subscribe allows your visitors to subscribe to the newsletter b. Unsubscribe allows visitors to unsubscribe c. Legacy For users whose email was set-up before this facility was updated III. Use double opt-in: This option allows you to define the subscription process, either allowing visitors to sign-up immediately, or have to click on an activation link: a. Use default configuration setting looks to the system default which is set in Setup Bulk Email General Settings b. No, activate subscription Immediately overwrites the system default c. Yes, send email with activation link overwrites the system default IV. Email Address Text: How you ask for the visitor s email address in the form V. Email Help Text: Allows you to offer some help VI. Use Salutation: If you want to collect names leave this box ticked VII. Salutation Text: Allows you to ask for salutation, changing this to Your Name may make more sense to visitors VIII. Salutation Help Text: Offer some help about what to type in this box IX. Message Format Text/Message Format Help Text: For those using the Legacy form. Allows visitors to choose what format their email is sent by, either HTML or Plain Text X. Predefined Subject: Allows you to choose which subject you display in this form. Any will display all active email topics, or you can choose an individual topic to be displayed. If you scroll down you will see the rest of this form allows you to customise the text which is seen by the website visitor at each part of the sign-up process. 10

Immediate Activation Please Note the Following: It s important to understand that if you choose to have immediate subscription activation (without activation link), you cannot have an immediate unsubscribe as well, as an error message will flash up stating: This email address is already in our database. Please log on to change your details. You can see how this would be irritating to the user who wants a quick unsubscribe process. You can have immediate activation with activation link unsubscribe, or immediate activation with an email form unsubscribe this means you would receive an email submission and then you have to go in and unsubscribe them manually. If you are mailing out on subjects which are not active you will only be able to have an email form for unsubscribe, as an automatic form would not be able to display an inactive subscription topic. You can also have double opt-in and double opt-out, meaning that your visitor would have to click on an activation link in an email to both subscribe and unsubscribe. A good combination if you want users to have immediate activation would be to have: immediate subscribe and an activation link to unsubscribe. This would allow people to sign-up immediately, but will receive an activation link by email if they wish to unsubscribe. This will cause some problems on the subscribe form though. There is a link in the text which says Already subscribed? If you would like to change or cancel your subscription, please click here. This link will refresh the subscribe form, which is set to activate subscription immediately and so if someone tried to unsubscribe using this form, they will see the same error message as stated above. All that is required is that you modify the link in the Subscribe Mode Introduction Text to be a link through to the unsubscribe page, so a visitor will be able to unsubscribe efficiently and most importantly without confusion. The best thing to do is always TEST. Setup your sign-up forms and test that the user experience is a happy one. Should you need any assistance with this, or require that we test the user experience for you, please contact Support on 0845 456 1022 or email support@intergage.co.uk 11

6. UNSUBSCRIBE YOUR TWO OPTIONS The two unsubscribe options you have is automatic or manual. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the unsubscribe process can cause some problems depending on how you have set up your site. AUTOMATIC If you want to have a completely automatic process less work for you you either need: Double Opt-In and Double Opt-Out OR Immediate Activation and Double Opt-Out (requires some alteration of unsubscribe links in the bulk email form text) To set up an automatic process, the unsubscribe form should be added to the unsubscribe page. Here you simply repeat the steps outlined above for setting up the sign-up form. The only difference is that you choose the Form Mode option Unsubscribe, and choose the double opt-in mode which you have decided to use. MANUAL If you would like to mail out to contacts on an inactive email subscription topic you will need to setup an email form to collect unsubscribe requests which you will then remove manually. To setup a manual unsubscribe you will need to put an email form in place on the unsubscribe page. This will collect the names and email address of users who unsubscribe. Each time someone submits this form it will be emailed through to someone at your office, or the site manager. You will then need to act on each unsubscribe request you receive by removing this user s subscription manually from the User Manager. 12

7. REMOVING SUBSCRIBERS MANUALLY To manually remove users from a subscription topic you need to go into the User Manager: Tools User Manager You should have the email address of the person who wishes to be unsubscribed, in which case, scroll to the bottom and click Search. Where you see the option to search on an email address, enter the relevant address here and click Search. You should see your results listed. If you have searched on an exact email address only one result will be returned. Please see example below; Click on the magnifying glass icon, View Details. You will then need to click on Email Subscriptions, as highlighted above. Simply un-tick the topic next to the user s name and click Confirm Edits. You will have successfully unsubscribed this user from the email topic. This means they will no longer receive email communications from you. 13

Important - Please remember: If you unsubscribe someone manually or if they unsubscribe themselves automatically, you can re-subscribe this individual if you re-run the same csv import file (if they were on this to begin with). So please be careful you do not want to risk annoying someone with emails from a mailing list they have already removed themselves from. This is where using the email form to unsubscribe users manually is useful because you can update your csv import file at the same time. However, if you only plan on running an import once you will not need to worry. 8. CREATING YOUR EMAIL To create your email, go to: Tools Bulk Email Compose/Send This will take you to the Bulk Email Message Listing. If bulk emails have been sent from the system before, you will see them here. If you have never sent an email through the site, this will be empty. Click Add Record. You will then have several options to choose from; 1) Create from scratch 2) Create from existing email 3) Create from template To create an email without using an email template, choose 1). To adapt an existing email, choose 2). To create an email using an email template you have had built to reflect your branding and mirror your website s appearance, choose 3). All three options allow you to create your email in Rich text, and add the Plain text as well, should someone call for a plain text email. Select either 1, 2 or 3 and go through to put your email together. 14

BUILDING YOUR EMAIL You will then see the following options: Name: for your reference only Email Subject: The subject line as the email drops into the recipient s inbox. Make this catchy to get as many reads as possible HTML Enabled: Leave ticked to send the email out as HTML Images Sent Inline: We would recommend using the default which should be set to Small Images Only (you can check this in Setup > Bulk Email > General Settings). This option is in place to protect your bandwidth. This setting means that large images will only be sent when the email is actually opened. Small images will be sent. User Groups: We would not recommend emailing out to User Groups as people in these cannot unsubscribe, unless you, the administrator, removes them from the group manually. Subjects: Select the email topic you want to mail out to. You will then be able to start putting text and images into your email. I would suggest filling in the Rich Text area first. In the Rich Text Message Body add you text, links back to your site and images. 15

To personalise the email you can pull through the salutation field: Dear $SALUTATION$, Ensure you write the salutation macro as follows: $SALUTATION$ Please be aware: If the salutation field is blank in the user manager the system will put the word visitor in place of the name. Once you have added the text to the Rich Text section, you can copy this into the plain text message section. Any links you have included in the rich text section will not be carried across and will need to be written out entirely in the plain text section, e.g. www.intergage.co.uk/unsubscribe_here.html Once you are happy with your email, click Add. 9. TEST SENDING & CHECKING YOUR EMAIL Click on the test send icon: You will go through the TEST MODE sending screen. You can review your email once more. Scroll to the bottom and see the following: Type in the email address you want to send this email to. You can change the stop after number to 1 or 2, there is no real need to send 10 copies. Click Confirm Action and go to your inbox. 16

When your test email drops into your inbox you will be able to check it: Make sure it looks as you expect it to Click on all the links to check they take you to the correct pages Check the Trouble Viewing this Email? link at the top opens your email in a web browser. It is a good idea to check this email in several different mail clients: Hotmail, Gmail and Outlook would be good ones to test. Outlook is notoriously bad at interpreting HTML and as a result the emails often look the worst in outlook so if you can check this mail client you should. You cannot guarantee that all recipients of this email will see it flawlessly, so please do not expect it to perfect to everyone. Once you are happy with your email, you can send it. 10. SENDING YOUR EMAIL Click on the Send Email icon: You will go through to a screen like this: 17

New Users Only: This is always ticked by default. Leave this ticked if you are sending the email out more than once, it means that people who have already received it will not receive a duplicate. Click Confirm Action. This will not send the email there is one more stage. You will see another screen which warns you about spamming, it will also detail the predicted bandwidth usage for this send: Click Confirm Action. This will send the email. 18

11. VIEWING THE TRACKING DATA Once you have sent your email it will track the responses for 30 days. This allows you to measure how successful the send was, and see which links have been the most popular. You can change the tracking period of your emails in: Setup > Bulk Email > General Settings This setting is at the bottom the general settings screen and is set to 30 as default. To view the tracking data, go to: Tools > Bulk Email > Compose/Send OR Tools > Bulk Email > View Email Log Click on the View Tracking Data icon: WHAT DOES THE TRACKING DATA MEAN? You will be presented something which looks like the following: 19

Let s see what this data means Total Sent: The total number of email sent out - Rich Text Total number of emails received as HTML - Plain Text Total emails received as plain text Sends: The total number of send including test sends Reads: The number of times the email was opened Users who read: The number of unique users that opened the email. This is usually lower than the reads which indicates that some users have opened the email multiple times Forwards: The number of times the email has been forwarded to another address. This is a read of the same email which is logged at a different IP address, therefore it could be the same user reading from a different address Clickthroughs: The total number of clicks from the links contained within the email Unique links clicked: Number of unique links click Users who clicked: The total number of unique users who clicked on a link Clickthrough Analysis: This shows you the amount of clicks on each link compared with the unique users who have clicked. Usually the Total column has a greater number than the users column, which indicates that some users clicked multiple times. 20