How to Create and Send an Email Broadcast

Location: Emails & Broadcasts/Broadcasts ->  Click New or Duplicate Existing Broadcast

Overview: Watch this comprehensive overview video of how to create a new broadcast email, test and send to a list of contacts.

To find jump links for each topic in the video, see the description section of the YouTube video, or you can pull your scroll bar to the time stamp listed below for the start of each section. (Click here to watch on YouTube. or click on the watch on YouTube button in the lower right corner of the video. )

See below for summary of topics and time stamps in the video.

To find active timestamp jump links for each topic in the video, see the description section of the YouTube video located on the YouTube page. Or, you can pull your scroll bar to the time stamp listed below for the start of each section. (Click here to watch on YouTube or click on the watch on YouTube button in the lower left corner of the video.) 

Summary of Steps to Create and Send an Email Broadcast:

00:00.00 - Click New vs Duplicate Most of the time when creating a new broadcast, you will likely want to just duplicate a previously sent broadcast to save yourself a lot of time formatting. In this video we are covering how to create a new broadcast copied from an email template.

00:31.00 - Create a Brand New Broadcast – Click New at the top of the broadcast finder to create a brand-new broadcast.

00:55.00 - Add the Name of the Broadcast – The name of the broadcast can be used for internal use to show in the finders, or sometimes can also be visible to the public when used as a clickable title in a newsletter archive.

01:20.00 - Status Setting – Set to inactive during development, be sure to set to active when ready to schedule or send.

01:31.00 - Associated List –  Find and associate the list you intend to send the broadcast to. The list finder will bring up any qualifying list that an email can be sen to. This includes: subscription lists, as well as query lists from contacts, completed forms, course and event registration records, orders  and order items.

01:52.00 - Create the Email – When creating a new broadcast you will need to choose which type of email to create or copy. In a new broadcast you will need to choose from the following options:

• Create a New Email
• Copy an Existing Template
• Copy from a Broadcast
• Copy from  a Sequence Email

02:46.00 - Email Editor Section of the Broadcast Editor – This is the section where you set and create the email portion of the broadcast.

02:55.00 - Friendly From Name – The friendly from name is a field where you can type in a friendly name such as a company name or contact first name to show in the recipient's inbox instead of just an email address. It is an opportunity for you to create some branding and come across in a more friendly and personable way through your email campaigns.

03:03.00 - From Address – This is the actual from email address you will be sending the email from. It is important that the email domain matches the domain of the website you are sending from. In light of this, we have disabled the ability to change the domain portion of the email address and are getting that information from Website Settings. (See here: Website Settings - Visit and Set These Settings to Get Started)

03:59.00 - Reply To, CC and BCC Email Address Fields: These are optional fields available for you to use. You will need to separate multiple email addresses with a comma.

04:11.00 - Email Subject – This is the email subject field for the email. There are better and best practices that are good to be aware of when creating an effective subject that can help keep your email out of spam folders while enticing your readers to open your emails.

Three major things to avoid using in your subject are:

• Do not use ALL CAPS in the subject
• Do not use spammy words, especially not the word FREE
• Avoid the use of exclamation points!!!

04:19.00 - Associated Objects – Although not covered in-depth in this video here, these sections are related to sending out broadcasts corresponding to specific content objects such as events, courses, and posts. When a specific object is assigned into one of these fields, the broadcast email can populate content via specific variables that reach into those objects and place the variable content into the body of the email.

04:32.00 - HTML Body of Email Editor – This is where you create the email body content.

05:07.00 - How to Paste in Content from Word – Most people compose their email copy in MS Word or some other word processing program, in this section we cover how to copy from MS Words and paste into the HTML content editor of the email.

05:24.00 - Format and work in Full View Mode – You can use the full screen content editor to work with your email content.

05:32.00 – Spellchecker – Our default content editors have a spellchecker that is always running, you can do a spellcheck at the end of your content formatting to check for any spelling or common grammar issues.

05:53.07 - Format your Copy - Review some simple formatting of content. For a more comprehensive review on how to use the content editing tools to create and format your content, please visit the help section – Web Content Editing Tools

07:21.07 - Exit Full Screen Mode to Save – If you have opted for the full screen mode of the email content editor, you will need to exit full screen mode to be able to see the save buttons to save your work. (Alternately you can use keyboard shortcuts Control + S to save while in full screen mode.)

07:29.10 - Send a Test Email to Review before Sending – Send out test emails to view your broadcast email in different email clients. It’s always advisable to review the email in Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, Apple Mail and others to help ensure that your email is formatted for the most compatibility.

Note: At this time, it can be tricky to get all emails to look perfect in all email clients. For instance Microsoft Outlook styles may conflict with the styles that get rendered in the email and not show them. There are some tips and tricks you can use to optimize for this, but our best advice is to ultimately put a view in browser link at the top of all broadcast emails that are heavily formatted. You can get the link to the email via view mode of the Broadcast Email/ Links To This Broadcast section.

08:07.16 - Send Broadcast Now or Schedule to Send – Review the send options including send now, or schedule for future send.

TIP: You will want to ensure that you have set your broadcast status to active so that any scheduled broadcast will trigger.

Related Course Topics:

• Email Stats for Broadcast and Sequence Emails
• How to Verify an Email Has Been Sent and Review Email Sent History

Additional Related Topics:

• Website Settings - Visit and Set These Settings to Get Started
• Creating Lists in Contacts
• Import your Contacts and Add to Subscription List at Import
• Web Content Editing Tools