Creating a new e-mail campaign
Creating a new e-mail campaign within Suite26 is a simple process.
If you have setup multiple clients you should first make sure you are working with the correct client.
Next click on the E-Mail tab and then on the Add New Campaign link.
The first step in the process is to complete the details for your campaign. Any fields marked with a red asterisk is required and must be completed. You can hover over the blue question mark next to a field for further help information.
Your Campaign Name will be seen only within Suite26. You should ensure it is something descriptive that would easily allow you to find it again in the future.
The Subject is the subject of the e-mail that your recipients will see. You can add personalisation tags to this field as required.
The From Name and From E-Mail Address are also seen by your recipents. The From E-Mail Address you enter must be a valid e-mail address.
If you would like your recipients to reply to an alternative address, you can enter it in Reply To E-Mail Address. If you do not have a different reply addres then just enter the same address you used in the from address.
Google Analytics Tracking is an optional setting. If you turn this on you must enter a campaign reference (this can be whatever you like must should be unique to the campaign and cannot contain spaces). With Google Analytics Tracking turned on we will add special tags to any links in your campaign content which will allow Google Analytics to pick them and show them in your Analytics report. For more information please see: Setting up Google Analytics tracking.
The next step is to choose the e-mail format of your campaign.
You have two options to choose from:
HTML & Plain Text - You will need to create two versions of your e-mail campaign content. The HTML version (which can contain images, tables, different font colours and sizes etc) will be seen by most of your recipients. The plain text version you create will be seen by your recipients who have specified they only want to receive plain text or those who are using an e-mail client set to display in text only.
Plain Text Only - For some simple newsletters or updates you may wish just to send in plain text only.
NOTE: The 'rules' for e-mail state that an HTML version must always have a plain text accompaniment, therefore it is not possible to have an HTML only version.
There are pros and cons for each type. The main things to bare in mind are:
- Plain Text Only versions cannot tell you how many people opened them or which links were clicked on. This is due to the way plain text e-mails are sent and this is not a limitation imposed by Suite26.
- Plain Text Only versions cannot have any styling such as font sizes and colours and cannot contain images.
- HTML versions are more likely to get held up or blocked by spam filters. You will need to experiment with and test your e-mails to ensure best results.
Finally, you will be asked how you want to create the primary content for your campaign.
If you choose to add the campaign content later, the campaign will be created and you will arrive at the campaign overview screen. When you are ready to create your content you simply need to click on the Edit Primary Content link.
If you choose to enter the campaign content now, the campaign will be created but you will be taken straight to the Edit Primary Content screen where you can enter your Plain Text and/or HTML content.
The final option is to create your campaign content directly from a page already hosted on the Internet. Just enter the URL where your campaign content is hosted and Suite26 will retrieve the HTML, CSS and images and attempt to create your primary content from that.
