Marianne Fry Lectures
Our main mailing list is managed on MailChimp, which is a sophisticated but also rather complex mass emailer. The following is a step guide to sending out a mass email.
- Log on to MailChimp here. Keep these instructions visible in a seperate window.
- Go to the campaigns section and choose Create Campaign.
- Enter a unique campaign name, e.g. Test of Reminder of Early Bird dead line 2017.
- Select the campaign type of Regular
- Create the campaign.
- Select the mailing list. This will normally be the MFL mailing list.
- On the Who are you sending to? page, select Saved or pre-build segment and then who you will be sending the test mailing to, such as Mariza only. Organisers is just the organisers group (if the group in the list has been properly maintained!). Then choose Next bottom right.
- Enter the subject title for the email, e.g. Announcement of the 2017 Marianne Fry Lecture
- Check the from name and from email address is as required.
- Tick the Personalize the “To” field box and then in the box labelled Specify *|MERGETAGS|* for recipient name insert the following bold text exactly including the *s (Best to copy it) *|FIRST_NAME|* . This is essential so that recipients are addressed by name. If this is wrong the email will contain the merge tag instead. Then choose Next bottom right.
- On the Select a template page, choose Saved templates and then select the most appropriate of our saved templates.
- You will then see a copy of the template which you can edit as required. When you click on a section, you will have the option of opening that section for editing in the right-hand pane. You need to Save & Close each section when done. Do the following:
(a) Edit the green line just above the Dear *|FIRST_NAME|* line to an appropriate subject header.
(b) Edit the body of the email as required.
(c) In the pre-header section right at the top, replace the text Use this area to… emails content with a brief preview, which could be a slightly longer version of the subject heading. Some email programs display this as a preview of the email.
Then choose Next bottom right. - Review the campaign on the next screen. We are not using social cards at present as we do not have FaceBook or Twitter (thankfully!). Click Send
- On prepare for Launch screen check that the number of subscribers is correct – you are sending a test email – DO NOT SEND TO THE WHOLE LIST! It will usually be just 1 or maybe 2 as you chose earlier.
- Click Send Now and then await receipt of the email – it take a few minutes.
- Check the test email received, making sure it has the correct “Dear <first name>” line, that the logo and header are correct and that the information in the footer is correct. You might want to test the update your email or unsubscribe links – but don’t go all the way through and unsubscribe yourself!
- To make a further test, navigate on MailChimp to the Campaigns section and on the line of the test to be repeated use the pull-down extreme right to replicate the campaign. Now start over again at step 7 above.
- When you are content with the test email, you are ready to send it out for real. Navigate to the Campaigns section and on the entry and replicate the satisfactory test campaign.
- On the Who are you sending to? page, select Entire list or as otherwise appropriate. Then choose Next bottom right.
- Edit the campaign name to be for real, i.e. Reminder of Early Bird dead line 2017
- DO NOT FORGET to tick the Personalize the “To” field box and then in the box labelled Specify *|MERGETAGS|* for recipient name insert the following bold text exactly including the *s (Best to copy it) *|FIRST_NAME|* . This is essential so that recipients are addressed by name. If this is wrong the email will contain the merge tag instead. Then choose Next bottom right.
- Review the design once more . Then choose Next bottom right.
- Review the You’re all set to send! page and then send!
- You should now return to the list of Campaigns and select and delete the test campaigns.
Notes
- When you edit the design of a campaign, that does not change the template you have used for a new campaign.
- When you replicate a campaign, the replica gains a copy of the design unique to that replica.
- Instead of starting from a template, you might want to start by replicating a previous similar campaign, but be warned that you will be working from a copy of the design used at that time.
- If you want to edit/update a template, you need to open it in the Templates section, edit it and save.
- If you want to use the latest template but also the content from a previous campaign, it may be best to replicate the previous campaign, move through to the design step and then copy the design content into a new campaign using a fresh copy of the relevant template.