Step 4 Creating and Sending Your First Message


Summary / Keywords

Step by step instructions to send out an email message using your email marketing tool from EmailLabs. It is an abbreviated version of the detailed instructions found at:

http://help.emaillabs.com/tutorials/tutorial_messagecreation.html.


Prerequisites:

  P1.  Create a promotional email using any HTML email message you've created with the tool of your choice.

Solution:

 1.  Log in to the Top Right Dashboard , and click on the Dashboard tab 

 2.  Click on Launch Email Marketing - your Email Marketing Tool from EmailLabs will pop up in a new tab or window.

3.  Click on the Name of the list to which you would like to send a message. In most cases it is the name of the store that you want to target. 

You will be taken to the screen: Mailing List Home >> Mailing List View

  


4.  Click on Create a Message, located under Messages in the left hand navigation
  



5.  Settings
  



5.1.  Select your Message Format

Message format allows you to specify what type of message this is. The most common format for a message is Multi-part/HTML. 

This format requires you to create both an HTML message as well as a Text only message. 

The system then bundles these together and sends them out. 

It is then up to your recipients email client to choose what format it can display. 

Most email clients will display HTML, however, there are some that will still display the text only message.

Unless you have a reason or prefer to send Text Only messages, select: Multi-part/HTML

5.2.  Enter your Message Information

Message Name helps you identify your message without using the subject line - it is your internal unique identifier and is different from your subject line. Typically you want to use the date and some information that will help you remember the contents like: 5/5/2008 - Cinco de Mayo Sale!

Subject Line is what your recipients see in their in box. It is your opportunity to grab their attention so focus on a call to action, urgency and relevance. This is why they are opening your message!  For example you could use: Early Bird Special - 20% all Fall Fashions this Week Only

Category allows you to group your messages into families or campaigns for easier reporting. You can create your own category or you can use one of our pre-defined categories. Once you create your own category, it will be available for you to use at a later time in the Select Existing drop down. Most of your messages will fall under the E-Commerce& Promotions category, so select that.

Segment allows you to apply a pre-existing segment send it to a smaller more targeted group of recipients. Since this is your first message, you should send it to your entire list by selecting No Segment: Send to all members.

5.3.  Enter your Sender Information 

The sender information area allows you to specify the reply to address (from address) and the from name as well as edit and apply the physical mailing address.

Reply-To address is the address to where any replies will be sent. This address can be your own address you can use our reply handler.

The reply handler (reply-###@emaillabs.com) is an EmailLabs address that will handle the replies for you. It will apply any unsubscribes to your list as well as get rid of the out of office replies that come through.

If you choose to use your own address you are responsible for any unsubscribes that may come through to that address. They must be honored and removed from the EmailLabs mailing list within 10 days.

We strongly recommend you use the default reply handler.

Sender Name is the friendly name that appears along side your reply-to address. It is the Joe Smith portion of the email address rather than joe@smith.com. Use something that is familiar so your recipients see a name they have done business with in the past and want to open it.  You want to avoid generic names like "Sales" or "Customer Service" because they get caught in SPAM filters.

Enter your preferred name into the Sender Name field.

Physical mailing address is a CAN-SPAM requirement. The function on this page allows you to edit and apply the footer.  Your address will be entered into your account when it is setup and well be the default used.  If you want to change it, you can do it here. Also, you can use HTML tags to make the footer look consistent with your message.

Leave the box checked unless you want to change it or the look and feel.

5.4.  Verify your Advanced Options

The advanced options allow you to select your message encoding and character set as well as adjust the click through tracking information.

Tracking allows EmailLabs to see who's clicking and opening your message. 

Leave the tracking boxes checked for both text and html so we can view who is clicking on what link in your email messages.

HTML Encoding and Character Set makes sure your message displays properly. Unless you are targeting customer outside the US and need to use special the default settings for 7-bit with US ASCII are fine.  

Leave the default settings. 

5.5.  You are finished with all of your settings, click on SAVE & NEXT 

6.  Creating HTML Message

Copy and paste HTML from a file into the HTML window

Another way to pull HTML into this window is by using the Get HTML options on the right navigation bar.

Upload HTML allows you to browse out to your desktop or another shared drive and select an HTML file that has already been created for you.

Get HTML from URL allows you to specify a web page to pull the content from.

HTML Editor is a WYSIWYG visual editor that allows you to edit the message as if you were in MS Word or a similar program.

NOTE: All images in your HTML must be referenced absolutely. This means that they must be hosted somewhere and when referenced in the HTML, must include the entire path to the image. For example:<img src="/images/getHTML.jpg"> is wrong. It should be<img src="http://help.emaillabs.com/tutorials/images/getHTML.jpg">.

After you have inserted and edited the HTML code, you can preview the message by clicking on the Preview HTML tab

Click on Save& Next

7.  Create Text Message

This is required and done so that users that have a text only reader will have a version of the message that they can read.

If you have created a text version outside of the tool, paste it here.

  

If you are using the Product Grabber, click Create Text from HTML under Get Text. Use the editable window in front of you to remove the extra content and characters that are entered in automatically. 

Of course, you can also preview the text message by clicking on the Preview Text tab.

When you are finished creating your Text message, click on SAVE & NEXT

8.  Verify your Link Aliases

The Link Aliases allow you to rename your links for reporting purposes. It makes a long link more human readable. It does not change the outgoing message but rather changes the appearance of the links for your reports.

Creating Link Aliases is optional.

The Notes & Tasks area can help you keep track of progress or create processes for approval. Since most of you will be doing most of the work solo, these notes are for reference and nothing is required here.

The Notes area is used leave notes back and forth to other users of the system regarding this message. You can also leave notes for yourself regarding your progress in the message or leave a reminder of what is yet to be done.

The Tasks area allows you to predefine a group of tasks that need to be checked off before the message can be sent. There are three levels of enforcement to tasks: optional, reminder, and required. A required task will prevent your message from being sent until it has been checked off. The other two options simply remind you that a task must be accomplished but do not prevent the send of the message.

Tasks are controlled on your list settings page at the bottom of the page.

When you are finished, click on Save & Finish

9.  The newly created message will be listed at the top of View Messages.

Click on View Messages located under Messages in the left hand column

10.  Test your Message

To run a quick test, simply select Quick Test from the actions drop-down and click the Go button.




10.1.  In the first area, enter the email addresses of the people to whom you would like to send the message. To enter multiple addresses separate them by comma




10.2.  Check the box under the Proof Format box so you'll receive both text and HTML copies in your inbox.




10.3.  In the Multiple Test Messages box check on Send multiple messages to QuickTest address with random test data from list and in Number of Test Messages enter the number of test emails you would like sent.

Note: This field will allow you to view emails as your customers would see them. It uses actual customer data and allows you to test mail merge fields within your message. If you dynamically insert "First Name" into an email, then whatever appears in the First Name field for the randomly selected recipient will appear in the test message that you receive.

If you place 10 in the Number of Test Messages field, the system will randomly select 10 people from your list and send YOU the emails as it appears to them.

  

10.4.  Click on Send

The quick test will be delivered to the designated email address / addresses immediately.

11.  Schedule your Message

To Schedule your message select Schedule from the actions drop-down and click the Go button.

Under the section Message Delivery, you can select when you would like the message to be sent including immediately.

The sections Message Options and Suppression List are not important for your first campaign and you can ignore them.

Click on Save.

12.  A pop up will appear click on OK

13.  The message schedule summary screen will appear. Click on Back to Messages