Create Campaign

How to use Contact Blaster Campaigns to create and send an email marketing campaign to a contact group.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Log into your admin.yourdomain.com

2. Select “Create Campaign” from the Contact Blaster menu in the Contacts area
   
   

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   NOTE: If you select Campaigns the system will allow you to select from Email or SMS campaign, and will walk you through the process of naming the campaign and selecting the campaign category.

3. Click the Edit Name link that appears to the right of the default New E-mail Campaign name to assign a meaningful name to your email campaign. Click the SAVE CAMPAIGN NAME button.
   
   

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4. Use the campaign category pull down to the top right of the screen to assign a category to your new campaign. Press the SAVE CATEGORY button to assign your desired category to your new campaign.
   
   

   
   NOTE: Category types can be added on the main Campaigns page. Select Campaigns under Contacts > Campaign Blaster.
   
   

5. Click the ADD RECIPIENTS button to select the target audience to whom you would like to send your email marketing campaign. Press the SAVE RECIPIENTS button when you are ready.
   
   

   
   NOTE: Click the Create/Edit Contact Groups to add or manage segmented groups to whom your campaigns can be targeted.
   
   

6. Click ADD FROM to verify and/or customize who your recipients will see as the sender of your email marketing campaign. Press SAVE FROM when completed.
   
   

   
   NOTE: The from email address you specify must use the specified domain which should match your store domain.
   
   

7. Click the ADD SUBJECT button to define what your recipients will see as the subject and preview for your email marketing campaign and press SAVE SUBJECT when completed.
   NOTE: The next step, DESIGN E-MAIL will not be available until you have specified a subject for the campaign.

8. To build the content your recipients will see in the body of your email campaign click the DESIGN E-MAIL button. You can select from four methods to build your campaign.
   
   

   1. Plain Text E-mail - This method is designed to give you basic tools to build quick, simple plain text only marketing campaign content. Basic appearance tools are available in the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor.

   2. Templates - In this tab you can view and select from pre-configured templates and add your own text and images.

   3. Save Designs - Once you have created a campaign from a template or by coding your own, those previous designs will be available for you to select to build additional campaigns.

   4. Code Your Own - This method is similar to the Plain Text E-mail method, but Code Your Own provides you with more design tools as well as Shortcodes that can be used in the body of your email to be replaced with dynamic values from your contacts or store setup.
      
      Use the PREVIEW EMAIL button to view an example of what your finished email will look like in a recipients inbox.
      
      To place images into your design, you’ll need to either upload them to your Media Library in advance and have the image’s URL ready, or have a URL from another source where the image is hosted live on the internet.
      
      To use shortcodes, place your cursor in the body of the email where you want to use dynamic data, select the shortcode you wish to use from the pull down menu, and press the INSERT SHORTCODE button. Only the shortcode will display in your design view and when previewing the email, but when the email is sent it will be replaced by the designated data.
      
      You can build emails in dedicated HTML tools like Dreamweaver, then copy the HTML view and using the view source <> tool, paste the HTML content to your email campaign. Verify links and images were handled correctly before sending your campaign.
      
      

9. It is recommended that you leave the Include Unsubscribe Link checked unless you are well informed on Federal or world-wide requirements for promotional emailing.

10. Lastly, schedule when your campaign should be sent to recipients by selecting the SCHEDULE SEND DATE button.

    1. Select a date and a time window in future. Note the send times are Eastern Time and in the 24-hour format.

    2. Specify if the campaign should be sent One Time Only, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly.

    3. In the Send Only on These Days section, if your email is repeating, select the appropriate day for the email to be sent or you can use Ctrl-Click (Cmd-Click on a Mac) to select multiple days to resend the campaign.

    4. If you wish, you can change the rate at which large groups of emails are sent. We recommend following the guideline noted in that area.

    5. Click the SAVE SCHEDULE button when you have completed scheduling settings for your campaign.

11. Once your campaign is saved, it will appear on your Campaigns page and you can elect to edit, suspend, duplicate, or delete campaigns using the MORE pulldown.

12. Additionally, once the campaign has been sent you will see statistics about Open Rate and Click Rate (for links in the campaign) for each sent campaign.