Alert Solutions Email by WebLaunch User Guide Support: Phone: 800-929-1643 Email: support@alertsolutions.com
Welcome to Alert Solutions: The one-stop solution for all your messaging needs. Thank you for choosing Alert Solutions for your email broadcasting needs. The following is a step-by-step tutorial that will guide you through the Alert Solutions Email Platform within WebLaunch. If you have any questions or comments please contact a support representative at 800-929-1643 or via email at Support@AlertSolutions.com. 1. To begin, you will need a username and password to log in if you don t yet have these please contact us at 800-929-1643 to get set up. 2. Have your Email list ready to go. a. The list needs to be a CSV file. To save your list in this format simply open up your list using Excel and click File : Save As and select CSV (comma delimited) under Save as Type. b. If you are using Office 2007, click on the Office button in the top-left corner of the program, click on Save As and then click on Other Format. This will then allow you to select a CSV file from the file type drop down menu. c. When creating your list, make sure that your column headers are all one-word. For example, use FIRSTNAME instead of FIRST NAME. 3. Go to http://www.alertsolutions.com and click on the Login link in the upper-right corner of the site; then enter your username and password to login to WebLaunch. 4. Click on the Email Icon to access the Email by WebLaunch broadcasting menus. 5. Select New Campaign from the Email by WebLaunch menu: Page 2
6. This brings you to the New Email Campaign page allowing you to set up and launch an Email Broadcast. 7. Using the above image as your guide, follow these next few steps to enter the properties of your campaign. a. Campaign Name is a required field and can be named anything you wish. Use something that is easy to remember for billing purposes as the campaign name will be referenced on your invoice. b. Bill Code can also be named as you wish but is not a required field. You may choose to leave it blank if you prefer. Bill Code is typically used when a company has one login that is used by multiple departments in order to attribute costs to appropriate team members. c. Campaign Date Enter today s date if you wish to set up and launch a broadcast immediately or postdate this to pre-schedule a broadcast for a later date. d. Campaign Time, as with Campaign Date, enables you to both set up and launch a broadcast immediately or to pre-schedule a broadcast for a later time. Note that Campaign Time references Eastern Standard Time (EST). 8. Email Properties: a. Sender s Display Name is the name you would like to be displayed in your recipient s inbox. b. Sender s Email Address is the email address you would like to be displayed as to where the email message originated from. c. The Subject text box is where you input the email s subject line. This is required by CAN-SPAM legislation to be indicative of the actual content of your email message. We also recommend your subject line exceed no more than 50 characters. For more information, please contact Support. d. Reply-To Email Address is the address you wish to route any replies to. This should be an actively monitored email address. Page 3
9. Email Options: a. Insert Forward Option allows you to add a forward-to-a-friend link at the foot of your email message, a great viral marketing tool to help you spread your email message even further. b. Track URL allows you to gather reporting metrics on any hyperlink that is in your email body. The All option will track all of the hyperlinks in the email automatically. The None option will turn off tracking and the Select option allows you to pick and choose which hyperlinks you would like to track. If Anchor Tags are used in your email body you must use the Select option so you can turn off the tracking for the Anchor Tags. c. Use HTML Template gives you the option of either using an email template or creating one on the fly. Selecting Personal will allow you to use a template that is stored within your Template Library. The Global option will allow you to select from a complimentary template from the public template library. d. Use Trigger is an option that allows you to automate follow-up messages to an email campaign based upon the recipients action or inaction. Additional messages can be triggered depending on whether the email was opened, clicked-through, forwarded, bounced or unsubscribed. In addition to triggering an email message, triggers can be used to send follow-up faxes, voice calls and SMS text messages too. Page 4
e. Insert Privacy Policy Link gives you the option to store a privacy policy that will automatically append a hyperlink to the footer of your email with this information. f. Insert Company Address gives you a way to insert your company address on-the-fly to the footer of your email. You are required by CAN-SPAM legislation to have this information in each commercial email sent. If you do not have your address already coded into the email, select Yes. i. An additional box will pop up allowing you to select the size and color: g. You have the option to attach files to your email broadcasts. To do so, select Yes from the Attach Files drop-down. Page 5
10. The next few steps illustrate how you would upload your Broadcast list to WebLaunch. Remember the only accepted format for your list is a CSV file. a. Click on the Browse button to search for your list. b. A dialog box will appear. Find and select the list that you would like to upload; then click on the Open button. This will then close the dialog box and you will see the page with your file listed in the Browse text box. c. Click the Upload button to complete the upload of your list. d. The next drop down box allows you to map the column headers in your list to WebLaunch. The drop down menu will show you the names of each column from your list. The Email Header field must be mapped to the column in your list containing the email addresses and is a required field. For example: e. WebLaunch includes multi-language translation capabilities, too. Below the Email Header field, there is a LanguageHeader field. If you would like WebLaunch to translate and broadcast the email in the preferred language of your recipients, map this field to the specific column containing that data. Hover over the alert symbol to display all available languages. f. You are able to store any and all of your lists for future use. All of your lists can be viewed in the List Library area of your WebLaunch account. For your convenience, we enable you to select more than one list for a campaign instead of setting up multiple broadcasts. Page 6
g. Once you are satisfied with your list selection(s) please click the Next button to continue. 11. The selection listed on this page is optional. If you wish you may skip this step by scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking the Next button. a. The Modify and Filter List feature gives you the opportunity to take your list and segment it. For instance, if you only want to send an Email to recipients with a last name beginning with M, you would type M in the enter value text box according to the example shown below and click on the Add link to add your filter. For assistance in segmenting your list, please contact Support and we will be happy to assist you. 12. Loading and editing your email content. a. Shown above is our What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) content creation tool. There are a variety of options to manipulate the look-and-feel of your email to get it just the way you want it. Enter and manipulate your content as desired. Be advised of the following options: i. Click Insert Personal Template to import a template from your Template Library. ii. Click Insert Global Template to import a complimentary public template from our global template library. iii. If you already have an HTML email template you want to use, click the Browse button to find the file and click Upload to HTML Editor to import. Tip: The WYSIWYG editor allows you to make changes to imported templates too. Page 7
iv. Images, File Links and Surveys may also be easily inserted into the body of your email. Within the Insert drop-down, select the object you would like to insert and select the corresponding file or object from the given options. Click Insert to complete. v. To view a rendering of your email s appearance, click Preview HTML. b. WebLaunch makes it easy to transpose your HTML email into Plain text. Click Convert HTML to Text to complete this. This will read through your HTML coding, take out the text, and insert it into the Edit Text Content box as shown below. i. Click Preview Text to view your plain text content. c. Dynamic content enables you to personalize your email based upon recipient date from your list. Please contact Support for assistance in using this feature. d. Once you are satisfied with the content of your email campaign click the Next button to continue. Page 8
13. If you elected to attach files (see step 9.g) to your email broadcast, you will be prompted to select and upload the files on the next screen. Please skip to step 14 if you are not attaching any files. a. Click the Browse button to search for and select your attachment(s) within the dialog box. Once you click Upload File, your attachment(s) will appear listed under List of Uploaded Attachments. b. You may also select to attach a file that is stored within your File Library. Click the checkbox for the desired file and click Upload Checked Files. 14. Send a proof of your email. a. You can send a proof of your email campaign to up to five separate email addresses. Please note that when the proof is received, the subject line will say HTML Sample or Text Sample instead of the actual subject line. b. Click Submit to send your proof. Page 9
c. WebLaunch will create a proof of your email campaign and send it to the email addresses listed in the previous step. d. The following proofing screen will appear. This will allow you to review all of your input from the previous steps along with a preview of your email s appearance and recipient list. Those files are listed under the Lists and Documents section of the proofing screen: Page 10
15. Once you are ready to complete your broadcast, click on the drop down menu next to Action:, select the appropriate action, and click on Go. i. If you would like to launch your email broadcast, select Launch. ii. If you would like to cancel the broadcast, simply select Cancel. iii. If you need to make alterations to your list or message content please select Reproof from the drop down. A drop-down will give you the option to Start Over completely, Keep Document (content), Keep List (recipients), or Keep All (both). Depending on your selection, WebLaunch will guide you through the steps again for the segment of the broadcast you would like to make changes to. Select the appropriate action and click OK. 16. Your broadcast is complete! These are simple steps to take to set up and launch an Email Broadcast. Remember, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact Support at 800-929-1643 or by email at Support@AlertSolutions.com. Page 11