The first thing you need to do when creating and sending your message is to give the message a name and select the type of message you want to send. The message name is the unique identifier for your message. Think of it as the name of your document. It is important to remember that this is not the subject line for your message.
The first sender option you will specify is the subject line for your message. For HTML, Plain Text, and Web Page message types, you will specify the subject line in the subject line text box in the sender options section. For messages created using a template, you will specify the subject line by clicking in the editable region labeled Subject.
The subject line in your message is extremely important as it may mean the difference between your message getting opened or disregarded. Here are some pointers to help your write a good subject line:
Get to the point! - Numerous studies show that the best subject lines are between 30 and 40 characters. So the challenge for you is balancing length and content. We recommend that you employ direct language and descriptions and always include your brand name in the subject line.
Avoid obvious pitfalls - Before you send any email or newsletter, run it through a spam checker to diagnose potential content problems. Be careful not to sound "spammy" in your subject line. Avoid phrases like "Free", "Offer", "Money", excessive use of exclamation marks, misspelled words, ALL CAPS, etc. Relevancy is key - Speak to your contacts on a one-to-one basis. Use personalization to refer contacts by name, geography, or group. "XYZ Event - October 30" is an OK subject line. "Bob - XYZ is in New York on October 30" is a much better subject line. Relevancy in your subject lines is absolutely critical in coaxing a contact to open a message. Testing 1,2,3 - Find what works for you. Define objectives, set benchmarks for opens, clicks, conversions, etc., and continue to customize and refine your subject lines overtime to find the right phrasing or structure. Also, once you think you have got it figured out, fight the temptation to rest on your laurels. Continue to test and re-test to find new ways to engage your audience.
Although headers are not required in your message, you can add a hypertext link to the top of your message by choosing this option in the Header drop down box.
Footers are like email signatures. They can contain your unsubscribe link, your postal address, and any other related information. Footers are very important because they can affect whether or not your message is CAN-SPAM compliant. Initially you will have access to the Default Footer. This adds a CAN-SPAM Compliant footer at the bottom of your message that includes the recipient, the sender’s physical mailing address, a Forward to a Friend link, a Manage Preferences link, an Unsubscribe line, and a “delivered by” icon.
For more information on Header and Footers, see the Creating And Editing Headers and Footers help topic
After you have chosen to create an HTML message using the WYSIWYG editor, you will be presented with the WYSIWYG editor. The WYSIWYG editor is visually and functionally very similar to Microsoft Word. If you are not sure what the button icons on the WYSIWYG editor represent, you can mouse over them to display the buttons name. If you want to learn about the functionality of the buttons used in the WYSIWYG Editor, you can read the descriptions below. If you want to skip to the description of a particular button, click on the name of the button in the "Skip To" section below.
Edit HTML Source
Toggle full screen mode
Cut
Copy
Paste
Paste as Plain Text
Paste From Word
Undo
Redo
Find
Find/Replace
Select All
Remove Formatting
Insert/edit link
Unlink
Insert/edit image
Insert a new table
Insert horizontal ruler
Insert custom character
Insert/edit anchor
Bold (Ctrl + B)
Italic (Ctrl + I)
Underline (Ctrl + U)
Outdent
Indent
Blockquote
Insert Tab
Align left
Align center
Align right
Align full
Ordered list
Unordered list
Toggle spellchecker
Field Tags
Special Tags
Paragraph
Font family
Font size
Select text color
Select background color
I. Understanding the WYSIWYG Editor
To help you better understand the all of the features the WYSIWYG editor has to offer, the functionality of each button will be described in detail below.
Top
This button lets you view and edit the Raw HTML source for your message. When you click this button, a pop-up window will appear containing the HTML source of your message.
Warning - If you do not click Update, any changes that you make to the HTML source will not be saved and reflected in the other versions of your message.
Any changes you make in the HTML source will be reflected in the WYSIWYG editor view of your message, as well as the text version of your message, provided you clicked Update. The Word wrap checkbox fits all of the HTML content into the default window size so that you can see all of your HTML code without having to scroll sideways.
Toggle fullscreen mode
This button will open up the editor in a full screen view allowing for a larger workspace. To return to the normal view, click this button again.
The Cut button will remove selected items (text, images, etc.) from the message body.
The Copy button will copy selected items (text, images, etc.) in the message body.
The Paste button will take a copied item and place in a specified location in the editor/
Use this button to remove the formatting from copied text, and paste it plain text format.
To Paste as Plain Text:
The Paste From Word button allows you to paste content directly from Microsoft Word into the WYSIWYG Editor.
Note - If you are going to be pasting content directly from Microsoft Word into the WYSIWYG Editor, then you need to use this button.
Undo (Ctrl + Z)
This button and it's corresponding hot key will undo the previous change or edit.
Redo (Ctrl + Y)
The redo button will redo a change or edit that has been undone.
The Find button allows you to locate specific words or phrases. You can also choose to replace those words once they are found.
To find a specific word or phrase:
To perform a search and replace:
The Find/Replace button will take you to the same pop-up as the Find button, only you will be shown the options for search and replace as opposed to just find. You can use the instructions under Find to perform all of the actions in the Find/Replace pop-up window.
The Select All button will highlight all of the content in the WYSIWYG Editor.
Remove formatting
The Remove formatting button will remove the HTML formatting from a selected area. To remove formatting from specific content, highlight that content and the click Remove formatting.
The Insert/edit link button lets you insert a new link or edit an existing link in your message.
To insert a link:
Additional Settings
The Unlink button will remove the formatting (i.e. the <a href="") that causes text be a hyperlink. In turn, the hyperlink text will become normal text. To use the Unlink button, highlight the link that you wish to remove link formatting from, and then click Unlink.
The Insert/edit image button lets you add an image to your message.
To insert an image:
General Tab
Appearance Tab
The Insert a new Table button lets you add a table into the body of your message.
To insert a table:
Advanced Tab
The Insert horizontal ruler button will add a horizontal line that spans the width of the message at the location of your cursor.
The Insert custom character button lets you add custom HTML characters to your message. When you click this button, a pop-up window will appear that contains all of the available custom HTML characters. If you mouse-over a particular character, you will be shown am enlarged preview and the name of the HTML character. You will also notice that you are provided with the HTML-Code and NUM-Code for that particular character. When you find the character you want, click on it, and it will be added to your message at the location of your cursor.
The Insert/edit anchor button adds an anchor to your message at the location of your cursor. You can use the anchor to create a bookmark in your message.
Bold
The Bold button allows you to type text in bold font.
Italic
The Italic button lets you type text in italic font
Underline
The Underline button allows you to type text that is underlined.
The Outdent button will perform an outdent of your text.
The Indent button allows you to perform an indent.
The Blockquote button adds HTML blockquote tags around a selected area of text. The HTML blockquote tag is most commonly used to indicate a block of text quoted from an external source.
The Insert Tab button will insert will a tab (4 spaces) from the location of your cursor. For formatting purposes, it is best to use the tab button and not the tab key on your keyboard.
The Align left button will align the message content to the let side of the page.
The Align center button will align all of your content to the center of the page.
The Align right button will align all of your message content to the right of the page.
The Align full button will not align your text and cause the content to use the full width of the page.
The Ordered list button lets you create a list arranged in numerical order.
The Unordered list button allows you to create a list using dashes to signify a list item.
The Toggle spellchecker button allows you to perform a spell check on your message.
To use the spellchecker:
Field Tags pull-down
The Field Tags pull-down contains all of the fields that you have created in your account. When you add a field tag to your message, a the tag will appear in the following format %%tagname%%, where tagname represents the name you assigned to that field. The %%tagname%% tag will be replaced with the value for that field when the message is sent. For example, if you have a field called firstname used to store the first name of your contacts, and you add choose to add this field tag to your message, then the %%firstname%% will be replaced by the firstname tag value. The firstname tag value will be whatever you have stored in your account for the particular contact receiving the message.
Special tags pull-down
The Special Tags pull-down acts similar to the Field Tags pull-down, with the only difference being that Special Tags are not replaced field values. Rather they are replaced by other data contained in your account. For a full explanation of each type of special tag, see the Special Tags section in the Creating Messages Part 2: Specifying Sender Options And Adding Content help topic lined to at the bottom of this page.
Special Tags represent the default tags that we provide in your account. The different types of special tags are described below.
Account info tags allow you to pass along information about you to your contacts. This information is pulled from your external contact information. In order to ensure accuracy, we maintain this information for you based off the data you registered with. You can update this information by contacting us.
Remember, this isn't data about your contacts (email recipients), this is your information. Because this information isn't contact based, you'll see that it is populated even in message previews. These tags include: %%!account_firstname%% - First name of the account contact %%!account_lastname%% - Last name of the account contact %%!account_organization%% - Organization name of the account %%!account_telephone%% - Telephone number of the account contact %%!account_email%% - Account contact's email address There is also a whole list of address tags: %%!account_address1%% - The first line of your address %%!account_address2%% - The second line of your address %%!account_city%% - Your city %%!account_state%% - Your state %%!account_zip%% - Your Zip %%!account_country%% - Your Country One last tag that can be very useful is %%!account_address%%, which you can use to print out your whole address on one line in this format: "organization address1 address2 city, state zip country"
We also provide a few special tags for providing actions that contacts may want to perform:
%%!manage_url%% - Manage Preferences allows contacts to unsubscribe and/or edit any information you are storing - email address, name, phone number, etc. This should never be used as an image link. %%!unsubscribe_url%% - Unsubscribe provides a direct link to the unsubscribe page. The contact will still be presented with a button to press to confirm this action. This link, unlike Manage Preferences, does not provide the ability to change email address or update contact information. This should never be used as an image link. Note that as a service to your recipients, and to remain compliant with CAN-SPAM, we always insert an unsubscribe link if there is no %%!unsubscribe_url%% tag found within the message. %%!forward_url%% - Forward to a Friend provides a form that enables the recipient to forward the message to a colleague and includes a personal message at the top. %%!message_url%% - The view as a webpage URL allows the contact to click through to view this email in a browser outside of their email client. This may be helpful if the contact doesn't know how to load images, is seeing a malformed email due to rendering issues, or is viewing a text only version of the email. This should never be used as an image link.
Date tags allow you to further personalize your message by adding information about the date. The date tags include:
%%!month%% - Full month name. e.g. December %%!year%% - Full year, e.g. 2008 %%!day_of_month%% - Date of month 1-31 %%!date%% - English version of date, e.g. October 12, 2008 %%!weekday%% - Day of week, e.g. Friday %%!utctimestamp - UTC timestamp, e.g. 2009-01-22 21:00 UTC
Footer tags are useful in your message footers:
%%!poweredby%% - Powered by graphic/text with link %%!message_id%% - ID for Message: (Displays the message ID number) %%!confirm_url%% - URL to Confirm Subscription to List; Use this tag in confirmation/subscription messages.
%%!reply_email%% - Adds the email addresses provided when you enable Reply Tracking for a message. %%!form%% - For surveys, you can use the form special tag to replace the existing HTML form tags and send the responses to the survey to the Reply To: address that you will specify when you send the message. Note - The Powered-By image is a logo in your message footer that links back to your website. To change the branding settings, go to Home->Settings->Branding.
The Paragraph Drop-Drown lets you change the paragraph style for text in your message. Each of the possible selections provides you with a preview of what text using that paragraph style will look like.
The Font family pull-down lets you change the font used in the body of your message.
The Font size pull-down lets you change the size of the font used in your message.
The Select text color button lets you pick the color used for text in you message. When you first click the Select text color button, you will be shown the default palette of colors. To see additional colors, click More colors.
The Select background color button will set the background color for a given selection of highlighted text. To see additional colors, click More colors.
At the bottom right of the screen you have the option to Cancel: takes you back to the previous screen without making any changes Save: Save the changes and keep you on the current page to continue composing Save and Close: Save the changes you made and bring you to the Message screen