04/19/23

Constant Contact Tutorial

Tara Stepan

Digital Marketing Communications Specialist

August, 2011

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“Musts Knows” Before We Start

1. Only send emails to people you know

2. Only send relevant content

3. Don’t send too many emails in a week

4. Don’t share your email list(s) with anyone (other companies/reps)

5. Look professional

6. Be prepared to respond

7. Think as a reader and remember the term “WIIFM” (What’s In It For Me?)

8. Make sure you always gather client emails

9. 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: tstepan@spectracell.com

“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 screenEdit your email’s colors – Use “Global Colors

& Fonts” – on the left hand side of the screenAlways use nice colors and fonts – look professionalStay consistent with the colors and fonts you use

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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 sendIf not, Constant Contact will tell you

what to changePreview & 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 questionsWant more advanced tipsAre concernedHave suggestions