On the 'Messaging' tab of your admin panel, you can create, edit and follow-up on email campaigns towards your users. Let's guide you through these 3 easy steps:
Create a campaign
Preview, edit & test
Measure the results
1. Create a campaign
Once you clicked the button 'Create a new email', you can start creating a campaign.
There are several campaign aspects that need to be defined.
Who?
From: Who is sending out the campaign? Who will the recipients see as the author of the email? You have the choice between a person or the name of your city or organisation.
To: Who will receive your email campaign? As an admin you can choose between all users or one or more existing groups. As a project manager you can choose from those user groups that have access to your project(s).
Replies should go to: If a user wants to reply to your email campaign, who should receive this reply?
What?
Email Subject: What line of text will the recipients see in their inbox? Make it clear, engaging and personal.
Email Message: This is the body of your email campaign. Define the copy, give it a nice layout, add images and hyperlinks, ... It also offers a limited number of personalisation options. By adding {{first_name}} and/or {{last_name}}, every recipient will get an email with their own name shown.
Header & footer: What will be shown above and below your email body? These elements are fixed. The header is always the logo of your platform. And the footer deals with all required information and legal terms when sending out email campaigns (GDPR and others).
Are you using a multilingual platform? There are input fields for every language.
Ready? Press 'Save as draft' and you will proceed to the preview. Need some time to internally discuss on the email campaign or to elaborate on it a bit further? No problem, after clicking 'Save as draft' your campaign gets saved and can be reviewed and edited at any time before sending out.
2. Preview, edit & test
When clicking 'Save as draft' while creating a new campaign, or 'Edit' on your emails overview page, you will get a preview of what the email will look like for your users.
Want to make sure everything is working out just fine? Click on 'Send me a test email' to send this campaign to your own email address.
Did you find things that need to be changed? By clicking 'Edit', you will have the chance to change whatever is needed.
Ready? Click 'Send' to send out your campaign to all selected user groups. Lay back, relax and start measuring your results!
When using images in an email you can resize them by clicking on the image so that it gets selected (with a the dotted line and 4 little white squares in the corners). You can then drag from one of the corners to resize the image to your liking.
3. Measure the results
On your 'Custom' overview page in the 'emails' tab, you'll find all draft and sent campaigns.
For every sent campaign, clicking 'Statistics' will show you an overview of the campaign results. How many of the emails got sent and delivered? How many were actually opened? And what percentage of users clicked on a link you provided within the email?
Below, a list is shown of all recipients and their actual status.
This statistics page offers you a chance to experiment with email campaigns, learn what works and what doesn't, and to optimise your approach with every new campaign you send out.
If you have any questions on how and when to use this email feature, do not hesitate to get in touch with support@citizenlab.co. We’re happy to help!