Transcript Document
Constant Contact Tutorial
Tara Stepan
Digital Marketing Communications Specialist
August, 2011
7/21/2015
“Musts Knows” Before We Start
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Only send emails to people you know
Only send relevant content
Don’t send too many emails in a week
Don’t share your email list(s) with anyone (other
companies/reps)
Look professional
Be prepared to respond
Think as a reader and remember the term “WIIFM”
(What’s In It For Me?)
Make sure you always gather client emails
Create an account!
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About Newsletters
Newsletters & other Promotional Emails:
Keep corporate promotions to a minimum (80/20 rule – 80%
educational and 20% promotional)
Inform them how you can help them, their practice and
patients
Ask the marketing department or use our website for
educational resources if you are out of ideas or need
assistance
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Let’s Begin to Design
Go to the email marketing tab and click “create an
email”
Name your email “Newsletter template" or whatever
template you are making (“Event Template”,
“Promotion Template”, etc…)
This is the master copy. You will copy off of this template
every time you send out an email (always copy emails you
will send off of the master)
Click “next”
Pick a template format
Make sure you stick to this template style for each type of
email.
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Message Settings
Once picked, enter your “Message Settings” - very important to maximize
open rates
Subject:
Be short, sweet and specific
Think about what’s in it for them?
AVOID:
• All CAPS
• Excessive punctuation and/or symbols
• Misleading subject lines
“From” Name:
Important to be a name that is recognized by your clients
Ex: Tara Stepan
“From” email address:
The email address you use the most
Ex: [email protected]
“Reply” email address (same as “from” email address)
Permission reminder – off
Webpage version – checked
Uncheck subscribe me
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Edit Newsletter – Changing Colors
and Adding “Blocks” (sections)
NOTE: If you exit from the email screen
without saving, you may lose your work
Now your email is ready to be edited
“Add blocks” (or sections) to your email if
you need more – on the left hand side of the
screen
Edit your email’s colors – Use “Global
Colors & Fonts” – on the left hand side of the
screen
Always use nice colors and fonts – look
professional
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Edit Newsletter – “Blocks”
Each “Block” or Section has 3 buttons on the left
corner
Edit – use the pencil to edit that block.
You can also click anywhere on the section
Copy – use the double squares to copy that block
This is also similar to using the “add blocks”
function
Erase – use the trash can to completely remove that
block
NOTE: You can also move these “blocks” by clicking
on the grey bar on the block and dragging it to your
desired location
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Edit Newsletter – Inserts
Insert Images:
Double click on the grey box if it has a pre-designated area to insert an
image
Or, put your cursor where you would like and image and press “insert
image” on the left hand side of the screen
Insert document:
Hi-light the verbiage you would like to have linked to a document press
“insert document” on the left hand side of the screen
Insert Hyperlink
Hi-light the verbiage you would like to have linked and press “insert link”
on the left hand side of the screen
Web address (URL) – you can link to a website
Email – you can link to an email address
NOTE: Insert links everywhere within the email.
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Edit Newsletter – Content
Edit the content within your “blocks”:
Have articles on the shorter side vs. long – you want to be sweet and short
to the point
Article ideas (vary your content with each email, but always try to have
the same categories)
Webinar promotion
Corporate updates
Regional updates
Educational materials
Client stories
NOTE: If you are copying and pasting from another source into the email, use
Notepad.
Click “Start” and then “Run”
Type in “Notepad” and the “Ok”
When you copy from another source, copy the words in here and then copy and
paste from notepad into the email.
This is because when you copy and paste from other sources, their back end codes
sometimes mess up the codes of your email.
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Preparing Your Newsletter to
Send
Complete the “spam check”
Make sure everything is safe to send
If not, Constant Contact will tell you
what to change
Preview & Test your email
Make sure all of your hyperlinks work and
everything is accurate
Click “Save”
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Send An Email NOT the Template
Go back to your “email marketing” tab and click
copy
Remember: Always copy the email you want to send
off of your master - If you keep making copies of the
copy, Constant Contact’s email code will mess up
and you will have to recreate that email from scratch
again.
Name your email “August 2011 Client Newsletter”
Now go through like we did with the master’s
creation and make sure everything looks good.
In the future, you will make your edits now off of the
master
Save
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How to Create A List
Go to the “Contacts” Tab:
Click the “Add & Update” button
You have a few options here:
Paste in a list of email addresses
Type in email addresses (with room for a few more pieces of data)
Recommended - Upload your list from a file or spreadsheet (So you can
upload all of the individual’s personal information)
Gmail address book
CRM address book
If you choose the “spreadsheet” option, you will have to search for your
excel spreadsheet list and click “next”
Here you will match select the labels for all of your columns that best describe
each column.
You can also say “do not import” if you don’t want to import that information
Click next, and either create a “new list” or add that email to an en existing list
you have by checking the box below.
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Send Your Email!
Once your list is created, go back to your email you would like to
send
Press “Select List” – select the list you would like to send this email to
Press “Schedule email” Send now
Or, schedule for a later date and time
Press “Simple Share” if you would like to automatically post this to one of
your social media accounts
Check the social media option box to have your recipients be able to share
your email on their social media site(s)
Check the box option to have early results sent to you (if you want)
Do not check the archive email option
Click Save
NOTE: I always preview my emails one final time. If you find something
wrong or would like to change something, set it back to “draft status”
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After Your Email is Sent…
Once sent, you may receive auto-replies or “out-of-offices”
A few days after your email is sent, check back and track your
results by clicking on the email name and looking at the report
Bounces
Clicks
Opt-outs
Spam
Opens
Forwards
Social
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Definition - Bounce
Emails that cannot be delivered to the specified recipient. Typos and email address
changes are common reasons for bounced emails. Your bounces will fall into one
of the following six categories:
Non-existent address - addresses that do not exist or have been cancelled.
The address may contain a typo or the individual associated with that address
might have left the company.
Undeliverable - addresses are those that cannot be delivered because the
receiving server was temporarily unavailable, overloaded, or could not be
found.
Mailbox Full - indicates that the message was not accepted specifically
because the recipient's mailbox was full. You will not be able to successfully
deliver email until the contact frees up some space in the account. In some
cases, the account may be abandoned.
Vacation/Auto Reply - includes bounces that were due to an automated
vacation message. In this case, the email was delivered.
Blocked - email means that the receiving server blocked our inbound email.
Other - Constant Contact was not able to determine the reason for the bounce.
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Definition - Clicks
Shows the statistics for each unique link visited in an
email.
The link tracking shows the destination of the URL.
For example if you have both a text and image going to the
same URL, the tracking will show just the destination (URL),
not which link was clicked. The click percentage above the
number of clicks is calculated by dividing the amount of
unique clicks by the amount of unique opens.
This information is useful in helping you to determine
which links in your emails are drawing the most interest
from your recipients.
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Definition – Opt Outs
An opt-out occurs when someone on your email list
clicks the "SafeUnsubscribe™" link in one of your
emails and unsubscribes from your mailings.
When someone unsubscribes from all of your mailing
lists, they are added to your Do Not Mail list which
prevents you from accidentally adding them to your
lists or mailing to them again.
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Definition – Spam
A spam report occurs when an individual on your email list
receives your communication and then reports it as unwanted or
unsolicited (spam).
Reporting email as spam can be as easy as clicking the "This is
Spam" or "This is Junk" button in an email client, or as involved
as finding the source of the email in the message headers and
reporting that email as spam to the listed owner of the IP address.
Users may complain to their own Internet Service Provider, to
our Internet Service Provider, or directly to Constant Contact if
they feel your message is spam.
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Definition – Opens
The percentage of recipients who opened your email compared to
how many were sent the email.
This percentage is calculated to exclude bounces.
The percentage of opens is calculated by dividing the number
of unique opens by the number of emails sent excluding the
number of bounces.
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Definition –Forwards
How many people forwarded your email onto a
colleague
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Definition – Social
How many people shared your email via a social
channel
Facebook
Share
Send
Like
Twitter
LinkedIn
Other
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Remember…
Email or call me if you:
Have questions
Want more advanced tips
Are concerned
Have suggestions
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