“Create an Email” Wizard

The “Create a Email” wizard guides you through the steps to create a email and set up a mailing list.

To use the wizard, on the “Main Menu”, you can click on "Create an Email." Or, you can click on the “Create a Email” tab from any page.

Step 1: Email Details

In this step, you can view or edit your company information, change your sender email address, name the email, give the email a subject line, and choose options for Social Networking.

Your company information appears in the footer of all sent email emails as contact information.

• You can click on “Edit” to change your company information.

• U.S. law requires an email sender's physical address be included in any commercial email

Your email will be sent from the “Sender Email Address”. To change your sender email address, click on dropdown menu and select another email.

NOTE: You can select only confirmed emails. In Settings you should add a new email and confirm it

NOTE: if a user has uncompleted email campaign the Announcer Pro will propose to procced with it or to start creating a new one from scratch.

Step 2: Choose Contacts

In this step you select the contact list (or lists) that you want to send your email to. You also can add contacts in this step.

Select contact list(s):

• Select one or more contact lists to whom you want to send your email.

• If this is your first time using Announcer Pro, then you must first set up a contact list (see below) and then select one or more contact lists to whom you want to send your email.

Adding Contacts. You have three options for setting up contact lists:

1. From a spreadsheet:

• An unlimited number of contacts is permitted, but Announcer Pro can only import 1500 contacts at a time. If you have more than 1500 contacts, multiple imports will be required

• Create your own spreadsheet of contacts (i.e. Microsoft Excel) and save it as .CSV file. Note: the spreadsheet must contain column headings and the minimum info required is the contact’s email address.

• Click on the "browse" button and find and select the CSV file on your computer that you wish to upload. Then, click the "Upload” button.

  • Select the lists you want to add the contacts to. (You can also create a new list and then add the contacts to this new list).

  • Decide whether you want to send these contacts an opt-in message.

    • Doing so is recommended if the contacts are not customers or have not already provided their permission for you to send emails. (Other factors include: the age of your list, your industry, the source of your list, the type of business you are in and the Internet Service Providers of the contacts). This step confirms that the email address is valid, but it also ensures that your lists are made up of contacts who are truly interested in receiving email emails from you. If you decide to do so, the contacts won’t receive email emails from you until they have clicked on a link in the opt-in message. When a contact clicks on the link, their status is changed by Announcer Pro and they will now receive email emails from you.

    • If you decide to send an opt-in message, click on the checkmark (to add it) that is to the left of “Send Opt in Message to subscribers.”

•  Click the “import” button.

How to import contacts using CSV file

Step 1 – Create a .csv spreadsheet

Create a spreadsheet with all your contacts. The spreadsheet can be made in Microsoft Excel or Open Office. Add in all desired contacts. For a list of contacts to be successfully uploaded, column heading are required as part of the spreadsheet.

NOTE: Below is a sample spreadsheet. At minimum the column heading Email is required in a final version of your spreadsheet. All other fields and data are optional.

Step 2 – Save file

Once you have created the spreadsheet, the spreadsheet needs to be saved in .csv format.

For example, using "Microsoft Office Excel" choose File -> Save As

Step 3 - Upload File

Click on the Browse for file (or drag and drop this file to specified area) button from the Import Contacts from a Spreadsheet section, locate the contacts spreadsheet saved in .csv format, click Upload

2. From Cut and Paste Email List:

• You can type in manually or use the cut/copy and paste functions to provide a list of 1-1500 emails that will be added to a contact list.

• This method will only retain email information for the contact. Any further information will have to be added manually.

Step 3: Choose Template

In this step, you select a template which will be used for your email. The template you select will give you a great start at creating your email.

Step 1: click on a template

Step 2: preview it

Step 3: click on the “Select this template” button

Step 4: click on the “Next” to move to move to the next step

• If you see a template with a “checkmark” in the top left corner, and you want to use this template, click on “Next” and you will be taken to the next step in the wizard.

• You can view the displayed templates and then click on a template you may want to use. A larger version of the template will display. If you want to use the template, click on the “Select this template” button on the preview screen and selected template will be ready to procced to the next step. If you do not want to use the template, click on the “Select a different template” button, and you will be taken back to the “Choose Template” step where you can continue viewing available templates. (You may click “Go back” to go back to the previous step.)

Step 4: Edit Template

The template you selected consists of a number of images and text areas. In this step, you use editing tools to finish your email.

For specific details on how to use the editor click the help link on the screen in the upper left-hand corner on the editor page.

When you finish editing your email, click on "Save" and then click on "Next" to proceed to the next step.  Click "Back" to go back to the previous step.

At this step, you can also send a test copy of your email and see a preview of what your email will look like to recipients, but you need to save your email before previewing.

Please note: At any time before your email is sent, you can make changes to the email by going to "Manage Emails".

Step 5: Schedule Email

In this step, you have three options…

Option 1: Send Now

• Your email will immediately be placed into the queue of emails to be delivered.

Option 2: Save Draft

• A draft of your email will be saved and will be available for you to further edit or schedule later in Manage Emails.

Option 3: Schedule

• You can choose a time and date for your email to be put into the queue of emails to be delivered

Step 6: Email Completed

This last step confirms that your email is completed.

There is information about created email and additional actions:

• “Create another email" -- Takes you back to step one of the “Create Email” wizard and allows you to create another email.

• "Go to Manage Emails" – You can edit or re-schedule the email you just created.