Getting Started Quick Guide enews.miclub.com.au The miclub email marketing software has a simple to use interface that allows you to easily create and manage your email communications This guide will help you get started quickly by using the basic features of the email marketing software. 1. Set up your mailing list(s) 2. Adding subscribers 3. Sign Up forms on your web site 4. Sending your first campaign 5. View reports 1
1. Set up your mailing lists To get started you will need to setup a mailing list. A mailing list is a way of organizing or grouping your subscribers. You could setup a list for a specific member category, for your staff, or for a specific newsletter, etc To add your list click on Lists > Add new list Enter a list name (this will be used to identify your list).there are additional options (such as subscription notifications, opt-in mesage settings, etc..) that you can either set now and/or modify at a later time. Once you have completed the details click add. 2
Adding your subscribers You are now ready to begin adding subscribers to your list. If you already have a list of subscribers then the most common way of importing a list of subscribers is by importing a.csv file. You can import name, email address, and any additional subscriber fields contained in your.csv file. If you have additional subscriber fields to import you must first create those custom fields by going to: List > Subscriber Fields You can store these additional subscriber fields in the form of a text field, text box, radio button, dropdown, etc. What you choose depends on what you want to use when you collect new subscribers through your subscription form. Click Subscriber Fields Select Text Field Click Add Filed When you are ready to begin importing your subscribers go to Subscribers > Import Subscribers There are two methods for importing, copy and paste or import from file. The most common is importing from a.csv file so click on Import From File. Browse for the file and then click on Import on the bottom. On the left you will see the first line of each column of your file. Match each column with the subscriber field the column belongs to. Click import and your subscribers will be imported into your list. You can also create new fields as you go if you have not set them up in the previous step. Click Browse to find file to import Match Import to fields You can add custom fileds 3
2. Capturing subscribers with your web site Gathering new subscribers for your list will be done through a subscription form on your web site. MiClub will set up the subscription form on your site. You just need to provide the lists and any additional fields. A sample form with standard fields is shown below Advanced : You can also generate your own custom HTML subscription forms which can then be copy and pasted onto any content managed area of your web site. To generate your own subscription form go to Integration and select a form name. You can now choose the lists that would be included, information you wish to request from your subscriber, and what message to display when they complete the form. You can also choose to have the visitor redirected to a specific URL after they submit your form. When you save your subscription form you will be able to copy the HTML code to paste into any page of your web site. 4
3. Sending your First Campaign You are now ready to send your first campaign. Go to Campaigns > Create New Campaign. You have the option to choose from a number of different campaign types: Regular Campaign- This is a great campaign type to start with. This can be used when you want to send a mailing once and do not require any special timing or recurring features. Recurring Mailing - Choose this campaign type if you want to create a campaign that will keep sending at a specific interval of days. AutoResponde Campaign - An autoresponder is an email that will send out after a specific period of time (after a subscribe subscribes) This allows you to setup an email to be sent instantly upon subscription, 24 hours later, 3 weeks after that, etc.. Split Testing - This type of campaign allows you to test a number of messages (by sending to a certain percent of your list) and then the software will determine the best message (based on read & link click through rates) and send that winning message to the remainder of the list. Text Only Unformatted no stationery mail RSS Campaign Create a campaign that will send whenever an RSS feed is updated. Such as having an update send whenever you update your blog. We suggest to try sending a One-Time Mailing to begin. Once you choose your campaign type click next. You will be now asked for the mailing list(s) you wish to send to. Choose the list or lists and click next. The campaign guide will now direct you on how to create the message contents. Enter the from name, from email, subject, and message contents and continue to the next step. The campaign creation guide will now walk you through additional options that you can apply to your campaign. This process has help notes included to assist you if you should have any questions. Once you reach the summary page you will be able to preview your campaign, send a test email, and initiate the sending. Once you have initiated the sending you can view the Campaigns page to check the sending progress and view campaign reports. 5
Creating Email Messages 1. Name your campaing 2. Select Type of Campaing Recommend Regular Campaing 3. Click Next 4. Select the list you would like to send the message to 5. Select your stationery 6. Type From Name and email 7. Type & Compose Message or use RSS feed - http://www.mlgc.org/cms/category/member-news/feed/ 8. Personalise Message with data tags 9. Check sending details 10. Send and check a test emai 11. SEND NOW 6
Using personalization tags Whenever you need to reference the values from your subscriber fields in mailings, just include the unique personalization tag where you'd normally include it, if you were manually writing it. The tag will then be dynamically replaced when the mailing is sent, so it's specifically tailored for each subscriber, allowing you to quickly create maililngs using a standard "template," and letting the system fill in the details. For example, if you have an Opt-In email confirmation sent for pending subscribers, you can include the subscribers name in the email message, which is a nice personal touch. Just click the personalization button in the editor toolbar, and select the subscriber field you'd like to include in the message: 7
View Reports After you send a campaign you can view campaign reports. These reports will help you analyze the read/open rates, link tracking stats, bounced emails, unsubscriptions that resulted from sending the campaign, and more. You can export each report to a CSV file for further analysis in any external application. 8
Setting up Bounce Management When sending campaigns, it's important to configure bounce management so you can track who is not getting your mailings and for what reason. You can create as many bounce settings as you'd like. Each list can then point to a different bounce setting if need be. There are three methods of dealing with bounced emails as the result of sending a campaign: 1. Extract from a POP3 email account 2. Pipe email to a script 3. Return to sender Extract from a POP3 email account This approach periodically scans an email account for new messages, reads the messages, then deletes them from the account. Once the messages are read by the system, they are recorded as bounced, so they begin showing up under Campaign Reports for the specific campaign. Pipe email to a script Rather than periodically checking for bounced emails, you can have your mail server immediately forward email to the script that records it as bounced. Return to sender This is the default, no-configuration-required option. Bounced emails will simply be returned to the sender of the email (the From address). Setting up bounce management The application will default to the "Return to sender" method without having to set anything up. This means bounced emails will be sent to the From address for your campaigns. This is usually not the best approach, so using the POP3 or "pipe" approach might be better. To add more bounce settings, or change the default settings, visit Lists > Bounce Settings. Here you can choose your method for obtaining bounced emails: 9