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Send Newsletters
Click "Send Newsletters" from the home page of your admin area.
How to create a newsletter:
1) Click the "Add" tab at the top of the page to begin creating a new newsletter.
2) Fill in the "Newsletter Name" field with any title for this newsletter. This is not shown to the customer.
3) Choose an "Email Template". There is an existing one called "EmailTemplate1.asp" that is a simple email template with an un-subscribe link at the bottom.
4) Choose who you want to send the e-mail to:
| Group |
Description |
| All Email subscribers |
All records in "Customers" table with "EmailSubscriber" set
to "Y". (By default, all customers are Email Subscribers until
they unsubscribe.) |
| Only Customers |
All records in "Customers" table with "AccessKey" set
to "C". |
| Only Affiliates |
All records in "Customers" table with "AccessKey" set
to "P". |
| Only Administrators |
All records in "Customers" table with "AccessKey" set
to "A". |
5) Type a "Scheduled Send Date" for your reference as to when you plan to send it, and to look back in the future as to when you sent it. This is only for your reference.
6) Fill in the "Send Test Email To" field with an email address to send a TEST email to prior to sending all newsletters out. Please note: This must be an email address that is registered in your customers table.
7) Normally you would not want to check the box labeled "Include people who unsubscribed".
8) Type an "Email Subject", which is the subject line of the email.
9) In the "Email Body (HTML version)" you may type out your newsletter and include any fonts, graphics, links, images that you want. Any HTML code can be used. You should NOT include any <HTML></HTML> or <BODY></BODY> tags, just begin with your paragraphs and content. You actually should follow this rule of thumb throughout the entire software.
10) Fill in the "Email Body (Text Only Version)". This should be filled in with plain text only. No HTML. A very, very small percentage of people have their email settings to view text and no HTML, this is for them. So you'll want to only use plain text here.
11) Check the appropriate "Newsletter #" checkbox from 1 to 20 under the section titled "Send to persons w/ the following interests only". By default everyone would be on "Newsletter 1".
12) Hit "Add New Record" at the bottom of the page to finish adding this new newsletter. Make sure the radio button beneath the button is set to "Add + View Record in edit mode", because the next step is to edit this newsletter...
Preview / View Stats / Send the Newsletter:
1) Once you've added a new newsletter to the "Newsletters" table you'll need to click to edit an existing newsletter.
2) At the top of the page you'll see a green box labeled "Send / View Stats". Click the button "Preview / View Stats".
3) From this page you can see how the email is going to look down below. Another important thing to check on this page is the top of the page "Quick Stats" that list how many emails have been sent. If it says 0 of 250 have been sent, this means it's going to send the newsletter to 250 customers. If this number doesn't look correct, go back to the previous page and verify that you're sending the newsletter to the appropriate group of customers.
4)
Next click the "Send Test Email Now" button, which sends you an email to the email address you specified. Once you review the test email and everything looks good then you can continue on to the next step which sends all emails.
If you're managing your own server, please note that sending newsletters is dependent on the installation of the AspEmail component and a correct configuration / installation according to the instructions provided in the Volusion Components zip file provided to licensed version store owners. There is an "Email Agent" program that runs on the server to send bulk email newsletters. Please refer to the installation notes provided in the Volusion components zip file.
Tracking Newsletters:
To view your success of newsletter campaigns you'll want to return to the "Preview" page and look at the "Quick Stats" section of the page. This will show you how many people have opened the emails, how many bounced, etc.
If you'd like to get very accurate detailed statistics on the success of your newsletters through to the point of tying together sales ROI, you'll want to do the following:
1)Go to edit an existing newsletter record.
2) In the top right section of the page titled "ROI Tracker > Newsletter" you'll see a TrackingURL.
3) Use this TrackingURL throughout your newsletter, so anytime you have a link in your newsletter, make sure the TrackingURL. The only important parameter of the TrackingURL is the "?Click=123" part. So if one of your hyperlinks in your newsletter links to a product or category page that already has querystring parameters, you can add the "&Click=123" paramater to it. Here's a few example links:
http://www.yourdomain.com/?Click=123
http://www.yourdomain.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1&Click=123
http://www.yourdomain.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=7&Click=123
http://www.yourdomain.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=ABCXYZ&Click=123
4) You can track your sales success by going from the home page of your admin area to "ROI Tracker / Ad Campaigns" where you'll see the newsletter listed and you can track it's success along side all of your other advertising channels.
Personalizing the Email Subject and Body:
You may personalize each email using the text "$(FirstName)" or "$(LastName)" in the subject or body of the e-mail. This text, which is case sensitive, will be automatically substituted with each customer's name prior to sending each email.
Creating Custom Email Templates:
1) You must login via FTP to your site.
2) Once logged in via FTP, navigate to the following directory of your website where all of your email templates are stored: "/admin/emails/"
3) Copy the existing "EmailTemplate1.asp" file and name it something else, such as "MyNewEmail.asp". Now just edit this new file in your favorite HTML editor, then upload it back to the website via FTP.
4) To use this newly created newsletter, simply choose it from the dropdown menu for the field "Email Template". It will appear in this menu automatically if it exists in the "/admin/emails/" folder on your site.
To include an "unsubscribe" link in your e-mails, simply create a link
to "MailingList_unsubscribe.asp".
You may also create a link, usually on your navigation menu or anywhere on your site that
says "Join our Mailing List", which you may link to the page "MailingList_subscribe.asp".
All customers who create an account at your store are automatically subscribed
to your mailing list unless they un-check the newsletter signup checkbox during checkout. The newsletter opt-in checkbox that is checked by default during checkout, is on the first page of creating a new account... the page where they type in their new email address and password.
Handling Bounced Email:
1) From the home page of your admin area, click on "Email Configuration".
2) Fill in the following variables:
Config_BouncedEmailAddress = (This is the email address that bounced emails get sent to)
The above variable is required. We suggest setting up an email address called "bounced@yourdomain.com" for example. And you can check that email box anytime. However if you'd like your store to handle all bounced email and provide you statistics on the bounced email, simply fill in the following configuration variables as well:
Config_POP3_Bounced_Server = (This is the mail server such as "mail.yourdomain.com")
Config_POP3_Bounced_Username = (This is the username to login to your email account, this value is usually your full email address)
Config_POP3_Bounced_Password = (This is the password to login to your email account)
3) So if the above variables are filled in, it will allow the system to keep track of how many emails were bounced for each newsletter email campaign you send out. |
