INSTRUCTIONS for CREATING an EMAIL CAMPAIGN with Icontact

INSTRUCTIONS FOR CREATING AN EMAIL CAMPAIGN WITH iContact

This is a nice program that is easy to learn and navigate.

http://www.icontact.com

The following instructions cover the sign up process, methods for adding contacts and creating emails.

SIGN UP PROCESS

·  Set up a free account by clicking the green get started for free button on the home page

·  Complete the START YOUR FREE TRIAL screen (no credit card required). The fields request the following information:

your first and last name

company name

phone umber

email address

password of your choice

A drop down box will request that you choose an email list size.

Check the box to agree to the terms of use.

Click on the green SIGN UP button.

·  You will receive an email to confirm your registration. Click on the link in the email to activate your account and you will have 30 days to explore the program.

USING THE PROGRAM:

·  Your name will appear in the top right of the screen once you log-in

·  Along the top of the screen are links to HOME, CONTACTS, EMAIL, SOCIAL, REPORTS

·  There will be boxes with statistics under ACCOUNT HEALTH on the right and a number of boxes with quick links to sending emails, posting to social networks and viewing your contact lists- these do not have to be used

·  Numerous boxes and links appear on the right side of the screen and on the bottom for tools, articles, training, videos, referral programs and additional information

·  You will have the opportunity to register for a webinar on this and every other screen for further training

CREATE CONTACTS FIRST

**Check on CONTACTS, the screen will display four boxes, each containing links to at least two choices

MY LISTS: the "My Lists" box has two choices

Create a List and My Lists (which only displays your contacts)

·  Click on MY LISTS, you will be taken to the LIST SETTINGS screen to create a list

·  Name the list- if you want this to be the name the public sees you will need only one name which will be entered in this field

·  Add a description below (which will not be shown to the public)

·  If you want the public to see a different name as the name list uncheck the box contained in the blue box in the lower right (which is auto checked) and enter the name you have chosen in the PUBLIC LIST LABEL field. Click SAVE

·  On the next screen you will see all of the lists you have created along with the number of subscribers in that list. Under ACTIONS you can view the "list health" meaning the number of people Subscribed/Unsubscribed/Do Not Contact/Pending/Bounced/Growth. Clicking on WELCOME MESSAGE will take you to the email creation screen that is used for every email.

ADD CONTACTS:

The ADD CONTACTS box gives you the following 4 options under

Upload From File- which is exactly the same, with the same screens and options as MY LISTS

One at a Time - to add contacts one at a time to an existing list

Copy & Paste - used to add chunks of text that contains emails, the system ignores the text and adds only the email addresses

Sign-up Forms - used to set up contacts to be fed to the program from web sites

UPLOAD CONTACTS

·  Click on the UPLOAD CONTACTS button, your uploaded file will then appear by the CHOOSE FILE button *iContact supports the following files: Excel spreadsheets, .CSV files, .VCF (VCard). Click Upload contacts

·  If adding more addresses to an existing list, check the box next to the existing list above and then click UPLOAD CONTACTS

·  The addresses with be added from the file and the next screen will show them in a list (if there was no header field in the file, you will be taken to a screen that gives you the opportunity to select one from a drop down box)

·  On the next screen you will be required to enter your initials to confirm that the email recipients have given their permission to be sent an email

·  Choices for how to manage the email addresses on this list are in the box "What should we do? (subscribe, unsubscribe, do not contact, update existing)

·  The next screen confirms that the upload is processing, you will receive an email when processing is complete

ONE AT A TIME

·  Populate the fields starting with the email address

·  Choose a list to add the contact to

·  Complete the optional fields (prefix, first/last name, address, city state, zip, business name, phone, fax)

·  If you require confirmation from the recipient check the box next to REQUIRE CONFIRMATION

·  Click on ADD CONTACT, the contact will be added and a yellow confirmation box will appear on the screen with empty fields ready to be filled for the next contact

Copy & Paste

·  This option allows you to paste text from emails, files, PDFs, forms...that contains email addresses. The program will ignore the text surrounding any email address

·  Check the box next to the list you want to add the contacts to and paste the text in the box

·  Click ADD CONTACTS

·  You will have the opportunity to view the number of contacts on the list by clicking on VIEW COPY/PASTE REPORT in the yellow box that appears on the screen

·  The screen appears with only the numbers of addresses on the list and their status (new, unchanged, bounced, do not contact)

·  You will continue to return to the initial screen used to add more contacts until you finish

Sign-up Forms

·  The purpose of this is to set up a sign up process from an existing web site or from Facebook

·  Click the Enable Facebook button and a new window will appear going automatically to the Facebook login page

·  Below the Social Tools Sign-up Forms is box with the HTML SIGN-UP FORMS option, for which you need to have a web site and create the HTML form

·  Clicking on the CREATE HTML FORM button takes you to a screen that will allow you to choose the border, background and font colors by clicking on the color swatch shown for each (the defaults are black, white and blue). Clicking on the color swatch pulls up a small box to allow you to choose a custom web color

·  After choosing your colors, click NEXT which takes you to a CREATE A NEW SIGN-UP FORM

·  Create a name for your form, choose the contact list to add or invite the new contact to and choose fields to include below that. The SUCESS AND ERROR URLs can be left as is and will default to a thank you and error page. Click SAVE * These forms can then be added to any web site

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MY SEGMENTS

(in the MY SEGMENTS box two options are available - Create a Segment or My Segments)

This is used to target specific groups from lists of people who have subscribed to your emails

click on CREATE A SEGMENT to add a contact from an existing list of subscribers, or click on MY SEGMENTS to view a list of created segments

SEARCH MY CONTACTS

(TWO OPTIONS ARE AVAILABLE SEARCH OR BROWSE)

SEARCH

·  this is self-explanatory and for finding contacts that have been previously uploaded, complete the fields in the standard search form with all available information, choose a date range and click SEARCH MY CONTACTS

BROWSE

·  This is a standard page listing all the existing contacts

·  Choose your list from the drop down box and browse or change the status of contacts that have been previously uploaded by checking the box by the email address that you want to update and click the bubble by the action you want to take in the ACTIONS box (choices are: copy, move, unsubscribe, delete, export, do not contact)

Once contacts have been added emails may be created for the campaign by following these steps:

There are 4 ways to create an email message, all start from the same page.

On the top bar of the page click on EMAIL

The following four boxes appear:

·  My Messages

·  My Autoresponders

·  My Surveys

·  Image Library

In the MY MESSAGES box the following 5 options are listed:

·  CREATE A MESSAGE: which has 4 options (Message builder, Message Coder, Text Only, from Web page)

·  DRAFT MESSAGES: used to resume editing a draft message

·  RE-USE A SENT MESSAGE: send a previously sent message to another email

·  PENDING MESSAGES: check on messages that have a pending status

·  MY RSS-IN FEEDS: create messages based on responses posted to your blogs

You will create a message in one of four ways by clicking on the MY MESSAGES box, then on CREATE A MESSAGE

To create a custom message using the Message Builder program follow these steps:

·  click on the Use Message Builder button

·  on the page that follows you will choose a category from the left side and will have a choice of professionally designed templates from which to choose

·  As you roll your mouse over the thumbnail picture of each template a larger view will pop up. Click on the "use template" button below the template that appeals to you.

·  A box will pop up and you will type your street address, city, state and zip in the appropriate fields--this information will appear in the email campaign in the sender section of the template. Using a template allows you to use a professional layout with graphics and add your own text.

·  The template will be on the next screen. The template is divided into sections referred to as "blocks." Each block can be edited or deleted with the exception of the sender information. The text formatting bar stays stationary as you scroll and edit.

·  You would add an email subject and name your message (could be the name of your campaign)

·  A tutorial is built in at the upper right of the screen above the CREATE AN EMAIL MESSAGE box (Learn More about MessageBuilder)

·  You can also change the message to plain text at the bottom of the page

·  Other options include, uploading a custom image to replace the image in the template, adding more blocks of text or additional images, moving blocks or deleting them. You can also alter the orientation of the blocks and see a preview of how it will look to the receiver by clicking the "preview" button

·  Save as a draft or continue to send

·  If you are ready to send the system will check to see if any address you have used is spam.

·  On the next screen you will have the opportunity to select your target audience by checking the list you wish to sent the emails to.

·  Below this you will be able to post to Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin

·  To Post to any of these social media outlets click by the account and then click on enable which takes you to that account sign-in page, where you will log-in so the account can be authenticated.

·  After clicking on "Proceed To Send" you will be prompted to initial a statement that claims the recipients have agreed to be sent the email, that it is not spam. Schedule delivery by choosing a date and time, or deliver immediately.

·  The email/s will be queued for delivery and on the next screen you will be able to cancel or preview them

·  After this message is send successfully (which takes a few minutes) confirmation will appear on the screen and you will receive an email confirmation

·  Click on VIEW SENT MESSAGES and you will be taken to a tracking screen that lists your campaigns, and messages along with actions on the right. You may re-use the email, track it or post it to an archive (roll over the icons on the right)

MESSAGE CODER:

·  This method works the same way, using the same options as the MessageBuilder,

·  Every aspect of the email must be added and HTML coded in this mode

·  This is NOT WISIWIG

My Incoming RSS Feeds: MY RSS-IN FEEDS: create messages based on responses posted to your blogs

·  Click on the ADD AN INCOMING FEED to create a message based on a blog post

·  The message creation screen will appear, complete the fields (RSS feed address, name, description), choose your message import preferences (import off, import all future messages, import newest and all future) by clicking the bubble by your choice and send one email at a time

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On the Email/Create an Email Message Page

under OTHER MESSAGE CREATION TOOLS there are two options:

Create Text-Only Email

Create from Web Page

TEXT EMAIL: click on the CREATE TEXT-ONLY EMAIL

·  The CREATE AN EMAIL MESSAGE screen will appear, use it as you would in any email program, the fields are the same

·  Click on proceed to send and choose your target audience from the lists of contacts created,

·  Preview, post to social networks if desired by clicking the check boxes

·  If you choose to preview, the PREVIEW RECIPIENTS box will pop up and list only the addresses being used. Close the box

·  After checking PROCEED TO SEND you will be required to initial the spam-free certification to agree that the recipients have given their permission to receive the emails

·  Click on DELIVER IMMEDIATELY or use the SCHEDULE DELIVERY box