Quick Start Guide
This guide will walk you through in a step-by-step manner on how to use the ekmResponse facility to quickly initiate an email marketing campaign for your customers.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is an easy, affordable and effective online marketing tactic that lets you build relationships with your customers, members, and prospects through personalised and relevant email communications.
Why email marketing?
By sending personalised relevant emails you will increase sales, grow your opt-in email list, and improve your return on investment. Affordable, self-serve email marketing is the best way to attract interest in, build desire for and generate sales of your products and services.
Creating a Campaign
When you first log into the ekmResponse facility, you will be presented with the main control panel area. To add a new campaign, click the "campaigns" tab on the left hand menu and then click the "My Campaigns" button within the small sub-menu. Once in there, click the "Create Campaign" button in the upper-middle of the page:
On the next page, you are prompted to enter a name for the campaign and a short description. The info you enter here is for your own reference only.
Once the name and description have been decided for the campaign, click the "Create Campaign" button. You will then be taken to the following configuration page:
Choose Recipients
The first thing to do is select who is going to receive the newsletter. Click within the "To" field to select the contact group that you are sending the newsletter to (to see how to create a contact group click here). Simply tick the box against the relevant contact group and then click "Select Recipients".
You will then be returned to the configuration page.
Enter Subject
Click within the "Subject" field to enter a subject for your newsletter. Your users will see this when they receive the newsletter email.
Once entered, click the "Set Subject" button. You will then be returned to the configuration page.
Enter Content
Click within the "body" field. This is the large white area in the lower half of the page. The content of your newsletter is entered here, so when clicking the white area, you will be taken into the WYSIWYG editor to populate your content such as adding images, hyperlinks and pre-defined tags as well as text into your newsletter content. You can also use the " Manual Editor" should you not want to use the WYSIWYG version:
You will notice a spam score in the upper area of the page. This relates to how likely your newsletter will be captured as spam, meaning there is a risk your taget audience may not even see your newsletter should he be deemed as spam. The scale is between 0 - 6.3 but the higher your score, the higher the chance that your newsletter could be deemed as spam depending on the recipients spam settings. If your score becomes over 6.3, then your newsletter will be prevented from being sent. You can check your score at any time by clicking the green arrows which then refresh your score:
Once you have added all your content and are happy with the spam score, click "Save Changes" and you will be returned to the configuration page.
Review and Send
When you have created your campaign, you simply need to click the "Send" button which will take you to a page that reviews your newsletter and check it meets certain criteria. If any of the criteria elements are highlighted red, then you can click the "Back to Campaign" button on the right of the page to go back and make the required ammendments.
Once you have made the ammendments, you can then send the newsletter by clicking the "Send" button again. As long as your newsletter meets all the required criteria, you will be prompted to either schedule the newsletter to be sent later on, or to send it right away:
Schedule Your Newsletter
If you select "Schedule", you will be presented with a date and time of when you want your newsletter to be sent. Simply enter the required date and the required time and click the " Schedule Campaign" button to confirm your request. Your newsletter will then be sent at that time on that date.
Send Your Newsletter Immediately
If you wish on the other hand, to send your newsletter immediately to your selected contact group, you can simply click the "Send Now" button. To confirm your request, click the " Send Campaign" button to the right of the page and your newsletter will be sent very shortly after.
Returning to the "My Campaigns" area will illustrate that your campaign will be in either the "Scheduled Campaigns" tab or the "Sent Campaigns" tab depending on whether you opted to schedule your newsletter or to send it immediately. Please note it is not possible to edit a campaign once it has been scheduled for sending.
This guide will walk you through in a step-by-step manner on how to use the ekmResponse facility to quickly initiate an email marketing campaign for your customers.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is an easy, affordable and effective online marketing tactic that lets you build relationships with your customers, members, and prospects through personalised and relevant email communications.
Why email marketing?
By sending personalised relevant emails you will increase sales, grow your opt-in email list, and improve your return on investment. Affordable, self-serve email marketing is the best way to attract interest in, build desire for and generate sales of your products and services.
Creating a Campaign
When you first log into the ekmResponse facility, you will be presented with the main control panel area. To add a new campaign, click the "campaigns" tab on the left hand menu and then click the "My Campaigns" button within the small sub-menu. Once in there, click the "Create Campaign" button in the upper-middle of the page:
On the next page, you are prompted to enter a name for the campaign and a short description. The info you enter here is for your own reference only.
Once the name and description have been decided for the campaign, click the "Create Campaign" button. You will then be taken to the following configuration page:
Choose Recipients
The first thing to do is select who is going to receive the newsletter. Click within the "To" field to select the contact group that you are sending the newsletter to (to see how to create a contact group click here). Simply tick the box against the relevant contact group and then click "Select Recipients".
You will then be returned to the configuration page.
Enter Subject
Click within the "Subject" field to enter a subject for your newsletter. Your users will see this when they receive the newsletter email.
Once entered, click the "Set Subject" button. You will then be returned to the configuration page.
Enter Content
Click within the "body" field. This is the large white area in the lower half of the page. The content of your newsletter is entered here, so when clicking the white area, you will be taken into the WYSIWYG editor to populate your content such as adding images, hyperlinks and pre-defined tags as well as text into your newsletter content. You can also use the " Manual Editor" should you not want to use the WYSIWYG version:
You will notice a spam score in the upper area of the page. This relates to how likely your newsletter will be captured as spam, meaning there is a risk your taget audience may not even see your newsletter should he be deemed as spam. The scale is between 0 - 6.3 but the higher your score, the higher the chance that your newsletter could be deemed as spam depending on the recipients spam settings. If your score becomes over 6.3, then your newsletter will be prevented from being sent. You can check your score at any time by clicking the green arrows which then refresh your score:
Once you have added all your content and are happy with the spam score, click "Save Changes" and you will be returned to the configuration page.
Review and Send
When you have created your campaign, you simply need to click the "Send" button which will take you to a page that reviews your newsletter and check it meets certain criteria. If any of the criteria elements are highlighted red, then you can click the "Back to Campaign" button on the right of the page to go back and make the required ammendments.
Once you have made the ammendments, you can then send the newsletter by clicking the "Send" button again. As long as your newsletter meets all the required criteria, you will be prompted to either schedule the newsletter to be sent later on, or to send it right away:
Schedule Your Newsletter
If you select "Schedule", you will be presented with a date and time of when you want your newsletter to be sent. Simply enter the required date and the required time and click the " Schedule Campaign" button to confirm your request. Your newsletter will then be sent at that time on that date.
Send Your Newsletter Immediately
If you wish on the other hand, to send your newsletter immediately to your selected contact group, you can simply click the "Send Now" button. To confirm your request, click the " Send Campaign" button to the right of the page and your newsletter will be sent very shortly after.
Returning to the "My Campaigns" area will illustrate that your campaign will be in either the "Scheduled Campaigns" tab or the "Sent Campaigns" tab depending on whether you opted to schedule your newsletter or to send it immediately. Please note it is not possible to edit a campaign once it has been scheduled for sending.