Creating emails that will prompt your clients and prospects to click on them and engage with your institution is, without a shadow of a doubt, a challenge. With SAM's email editors, we aim to provide you with an easy to use tool that will help you promote that engagement. This emails will be linked later to a campaign.
In the email template menu, within the Audience Management module, you'll be able to find all the email templates that might already have been created by your institution.
As you can see above in the picture, you can delete, duplicate or archive any of the email templates. You can also edit them by:
- Selecting one line and clicking on the Edit message button: this will display on a pop up window directly the email template.
- Or by double clicking on the line: this will display on a pop up window both the configuration (name, title...) of the email and the template.
We'll see later how to send an email test ("Send test message" button). But first we are going to create a new email template by clicking on the "New" button.
Here you'll be able to select a few different options:
- The type of message template and its language, which are merely informative.
- And the email editor type:
- The basic email editor: Recommended only for copy-pasting an HTML formatted email.
- The designer email editor (NEW): This is the email editor we are going to explain how to use in this training unit.
If you don't have the option to select the editor, this means that the Designer editor hasn't been activated yet in your Institution.
Since HTML is a language and not a file format, automatic migration of old templates is not possible. As part of the activation pack, our service team will convert for free one of your current templates to the new Designer email editor, including creating re-usable rows.
Once these are selected, click on "Next", and the screen that you can see here (screenshot on the right) will be displayed.
It is possible to include a set of dynamic fields in the Subject* of the email. This functionality is a great asset that can turn any generic email into something way more personalized and attractive, and this will increase the probability of your email being opened. These are the dynamic fields you can add:
- Name: $!campaignData.contact.firstName
- Family name: $!campaignData.contact.lastName
- Email: $!campaignData.contact.emailAddress.emailAddress
- Contact number: $!campaignData.contact.contactNumber
- Official name of the structure: $!campaignData.contact.structure.structureName
- Structure name: $!campaignData.contact.structure.addressName1
- Letter salutation: $!campaignData.contact.letterBodySalutation
- Address salutation: $!campaignData.contact.addressSalutation
- Gender: $!campaignData.contact.gender
- Age: $!campaignData.contact.age
You can see an example on the left.
You can check in the contact file the exact correspondence of the fields. Remember that if you decide to introduce a dynamic field in the subject, and that information is not available in the contact file, the display will not be successful.
Above you can see an example of a dynamic field on the subject of an email template. $!campaignData.contact.firstName will be replaced by the first name of the client.
After introducing all the required information* and saving, the Email menu on the left will be unlocked.
Be smart with the way you choose the internal name of your email template, as it will be accessible to the whole institution, and not only your organization. It will be easier afterwards to filter them and sort them out. For example, you could always start them with the acronym of your organization and then the email template name of your choosing.
Click here to continue the training unit and explore the Designer email editor.