Campaign Emails

Contents

Creating a Campaign Email
Select a Template
Email Content Builder
Ways to include a file
The Unsubscribe URL Token
Test and Publish
Sending a Campaign Email
Ready to Send vs. Draft Emails

Creating a Campaign Email

The Campaign Emails feature allows you to send e-newsletters and other mass emails (called campaign emails) to a list of addresses that you build through the Email Audience feature.

To create a Campaign Email, go to Emails > Campaign Emails and select Build New Campaign Email.

Select an Email Template

This page asks you to select a template for your email.

NeonCRM will auto-select your Default template, but you can also build or upload a new template, or use one of the newsletter templates with predefined layouts and styles by selecting the second option.

Once you select a template, click Next.

Email Content Builder

On this page, you can draft the contents of your email using a WYSIWYG editor. You can insert data from NeonCRM using <<Insert Token>>.

Click Next once you have finished drafting your email.

Linking to an external file

Although files are unable to be attached directly to Email Campaigns, there are still some available options that will allow you to share files with constituents via an Email Campaign.

1. Use Files (if you have it enabled): Upload it to Files within your NeonCRM and choose to Publish the file. NeonCRM will generate a URL which will link to the file. This URL can then be included in your desired Email Campaign(s). You must make your file Available to public for the URL to work.
2. Make use of an outside document sharing service (i.e. Google Drive or Drop Box): These services operate much like NeonCRM's Files where you can upload your file to the service, grab the generated URL, and then include the URL in your Email Campaign for constituents to download and access the file.

Plain Text Email Content

The next page will ask you edit the Plain Text version of your email. Some email users prefer to view emails only in Plain Text, so you will need to make sure that your Plain Text version is as close to your original email as possible. By default, NeonCRM will generate plain text based upon the content of your original email.

The following items from your original email will not work in Plain Text and will be removed:

• Photos
• Links

For example, in our original email, we included a link to buy tickets to our event online. Notice that this link is now gone in the Plain Text version.

If you add the actual URL to the text version, your text-only recipients can copy and paste it into their browsers to be taken to the desired page.

When you are satisfied with your Plain Text version, click Next.

The Unsubscribe URL Token

• If the email template you use to build the campaign email does NOT include the Unsubscribe URL token, you will be required to add it to the HTML content of your message.
• If the email template you use to build the campaign email includes the unsubscribe link automatically, then Neon will add this token to the Text-Only content of your message by default. This token cannot be removed.

To add the token to the HTML content of your message, click on the "Insert <<Token>>" menu and select it from the Tokens list.

Email Details

The next page will ask you to define several items about your email:

1. Email name - This will appear as the subject line on your email
2. Email subject - This is your own internal name for this particular Campaign Email
3. From name - This is the name that will appear as the sender on your email. If left blank, this will automatically populate with the Contact Name as it appears in your Organization Profile.
4. Enter sender email address - This is the email address that will appear as the sender on your email

Once you have entered the appropriate information, click Save.

Test and save as Ready to Send

On the next page, you have the option to send yourself a test copy of your email by entering your email address and selecting Test.

If you still have more changes to make to your email, select Edit to go back to the WYSIWYG editor.

When the email is ready, select from two options regarding saving your email:

1. Save Draft
2. Ready to Send

If you choose Save Draft, your work will be saved and the email will go to your Email Drafts list. Draft emails can still be edited.

Once a campaign email is marked Ready to Send, you cannot make any further changes. This closes the email to future editing and makes it available for sending. Choosing this option will take you to further sending options.

Sending a Campaign Email

Immediately after marking your email Ready to Send, you will be prompted to send out your email blast. You can always do this later by navigating here: Emails > Schedule & Send, but to do it now, click the Setup Email Schedule button.

This will re-direct you to step 2 of the Send Campaign Emails utility where you are prompted to select the Email Audience you wish to send this email to.

Select the Audience from the list, then click Continue.

After selecting an audience, you can either schedule the message to go out in the future or send it immediately.

1. Send on: [future date] - the email will be sent by the Nightly Scheduler around 5:00 AM Central Time on the date you have specified.
2. Send immediately - the email will be sent today.

Note: an Email Campaign cannot be sent to the same Audience twice.

Emails Ready to Send vs. Email Drafts

• A Ready to Send email means that you have finished building the content and the email is ready to be sent. You cannot edit an email once it has been marked Ready to Send. To make changes to an email with this status, you can build a new one using the 'Build From Existing Email' function.
• A Draft email is not yet complete and is still open for editing. An email must be Ready to Send before you are able to sent it.