When you log in to Campaign Monitor, you will see the screen below. Click on the green "CREATE" button on the right. If you are not on this screen, you can go to ‘Campaigns’ in the top menu, and then you should see the button to create a new campaign. Always start a new campaign, do not duplicate old emails.

You will then need to fill in the details of your campaign:

Campaign Name: Give the email campaign a descriptive name to make it clear what it is for. Including the date and the position of the email in a sequence of sends (eg if it’s the second email sent on this topic) helps to ensure it’s easy to find relevant emails later on. recipients of the email will never see this title, it's for backend users only

Add Tag: Select a tag or multiple tags if appropriate from the dropdown menu to categorise your email type. This makes filtering emails easier to be able to view certain group of emails from others eg if I only want to see a list of Food Business emails I can filter by FB. You can add more than one tag, eg FB and ENews. 

Subject Line: Write a short subject line that will entice the recipient to open the email. Industry recommendations say subject lines should be between 30-50 characters in length. It's important to understand your audience and make it something clear and engaging that will make a supporter want to open the email. Use the ‘insert personalisation’ function to add in eg the recipient’s first name. Please ensure the list you are sending to has the relevant field populated (eg ensure your subscriber list includes the recipient's first names).

Preheader text: this should be an extension of the subject line and provide more information about what the email contains, or a call to action. Ideally between 40-50 characters.

Sender: Who is sending this campaign? This should be the name and email address the email comes from. For example, the name might be ‘Food Business’. The address is split into two.  The second part will always be "@ciwf.org" or "@ciwf.it" for the Italian team. The first part is often "noreply" but can be another ciwf email address.

Reply-To: this is optional. If you wish for recipients to be able to reply directly to the email when using a no-reply address (and bear in mind, this may include any out-of-office/bounce notifications), then you can tick the ‘Use a different reply-to address’ and supply the correct one there.

When you are done in the setup for the campaign click "Design Email" section on the right-hand side, then select "Use A Template". Do not duplicate old emails.

Templates

On the next screen, select ‘My templates’ on the left-hand side, and select the appropriate template. If sending a marketing-style email use the first templated "All CIWF & FB Emails". If sending a plain letter-type email eg to MEP's use the "MEP Emails - Simple Plain Text Template".

Marketing Styled Emails

Setting the header and footer

First, select the appropriate header, footer and unsubscribe options for your email. It is set by default to the English CIWF logo and the headquarters address in the footer.

To select an alternative, click on the bin icon. Then select the appropriate option from the "Add New" drop-down list.

Email heading H1 title

Edit the heading by clicking on the grey edit button, and populate the pop-out editor box on the left-hand side of the screen with your email heading. Write the heading in sentence case. Do not write in all capitals. This is important for accessibility. The CSS will automatically make the heading display in all capitals for visually capable users. All emails must have an H1 title, you cannot remove this title. Click "Save Changes" when done.

There is one content block in the content area that can be customised and used to add more content blocks by clicking on the grey drop-down menu. Select the additional blocks you need. Use the drag-and-drop functionality to re-order the blocks.

Blocks don't have spacers added automatically, add spacer blocks to create pleasing spacing in the email.

Paragraph blocks

Type/paste your copy into the editor box.

Remove or edit the headings as required. These headings are static, so if you want a heading,  body copy, heading, body copy make them as separate blocks.

If you paste several paragraphs copied from a Word doc, you will need to delete and re-add paragraphs, as otherwise it adds them in as line breaks, rather than new paragraphs.

You can use the bold and italics buttons in the menu above the text box, the bulleted and numbered list options, and if you wish. Please do not use the alignment, font colour or font size options in that menu!

To insert a hyperlink, you can highlight the word(s) on which it should appear, and then click ‘Insert’ > ‘Link’.

To add personalisation to the copy click ‘Insert’ > ‘Personalisation’>select the personalisation you want to insert from the list.

Once you’re done, click ‘Save changes’.

Sub-Headings

Add and edit headings similarly. You are permitted to have headings right or center-aligned. Always write headings in sentence case, never write in capitals or add additional styles such as bold or italics. This is important for accessibility.

Buttons

There are two styles of buttons available, in green and orange. Orange buttons are only used for donation or financial transaction type links. Green should be used for everything else.

Because of the way we need to style them when editing the button, you will see a plain text field that says <font color="ffffff" style="text-decoration:underline;color: #ffffff">Take action</font>.
Please only overwrite the words ‘Take action’ for what you want the button title to be – do not remove any of the code from either side!

Write the button title in sentence case and keep it short. Clear, short concise calls to action work best and perform better than creative more ambiguous titles.

To add the link to the button, click the cog icon next to the button text field, and select ‘Make this text a link’. Paste in the url or use the "Email" option to add a direct "mailto" link inserting the contact email address with an optional pre-filled subject line and message.

Click "Save Changes" to save the edits to the block.

Images

Image preparation

All images used for email should be max 200kb file size when possible.

Images don't need to be pre-sized, but they do need to meet the minimum width requirement for the block.

All images are imported directly to Campaign Monitor through the image or image and text block editor.

Do not blow images up to fit the minimum size requirements and ensure images are sharp and of high quality. Using degraded images, blurry images reflects poorly on our professionalism and undermines the message we are conveying.

Do not use images with text overlaid in them.

Editing an image block

Click on the cog icon next to the alternative text field. Select "Remove Image" to change the image in the block. Click on the button that now appears "Choose Image" to select a pre-prepared image for the block from your computer directory.

Fill in the alternative text field to populate the alternative text, replacing the placeholder text "Image description here". Ensure you understand how to write good alternative text descriptions. Please refer to our accessibility guide and take the accessibility training. The training is through Site Improve, please contact Digital Team if you don't have Site Improve access. Log in with your details to access the training.

Adding a link to images

To add a link, (we recommended including one where possible as images often get clicked on), click on the cog icon in the alternative text field and select "Add Link" from the menu. Insert the url or use the "Email" option to insert a "mailto" link inserting the contact email address with an optional pre-filled subject line and message.

Adding Captions

Full-width image blocks have a second field available to add an optional caption. The caption can be used to display photo credits if required or can be left empty if no caption is needed.

Click "Save Changes" when done editing to save the edits.

Image Text Block

There are two image text blocks with alternate displays. When you go to edit this block, you will be editing both the image and the copy next to it.

To change the image, it's the same process as for full-width images. Click the cog icon next to the image field, and select "REMOVE IMAGE". You will then be given the option to "choose file" – pick the image you want from your computer.

Ensure the image is cropped to a square or portrait format and that it meets the size requirements given in the image section.

Fill in the alternative text field to populate the alternative text, replacing the placeholder text "Image description here". Ensure you understand how to write good alternative text descriptions. Please refer to our accessibility guide and take the accessibility training.

You can also add a link to the image, follow the steps provided in the section on images. Adding links to images is recommended as they often get clicked on.

Edit the copy section in the same way as for paragraph blocks. Be careful to preview how much text is inserted next to the height of the image. You want the text to match as closely as possible to the height of the image so there aren't big empty spaces left.

Captions are not available for image-text blocks.

Click "SAVE CHANGES" when edits are done.

Article Block

This block can be used to create special attention to a section of the email. Edit the title, image and text areas using the editor on the left in the same way as other blocks with these elements.

Images should be in landscape format.

Grey Impact Paragraph Block

Another way to draw attention to content is by using the Grey Impact text block. It is edited in the same way as a regular paragraph block.

Social Share Buttons

If you want Social Share options use the social button blocks, don't use the Social Share option from the Insert menu. This does not work and breaks in the email.

There is one block with a set of four social buttons, or you can have Twitter, Facebook or Email share as single buttons. If you need other button combinations please contact the Digital Team.

To edit the link on the share buttons click on the Cog icon for each button in the editor, and select "EDIT LINK"

Facebook

For Facebook share links, you need to encode the URL of the page you wish to share, and add it to the end of the pre-populated URL http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=
Do not delete this!

Use this free tool to encode – paste the URL you want to share in the encoder, click "ENCODE" and then copy the encoded version and add it to the end of the pre-populated URL in the field.

For example, if you wanted to share https://www.ciwf.org, the end URL to add to the button look like – http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ciwf.org – the bold part is the encoded URL to be shared.

Twitter

For Twitter, add some suggested tweet text – type the tweet text into the encoder, along with a link (first shortening it in bitly or another link shortening tool), encode, and add to the end of the pre-populated URL https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text= Do not delete this!

Once encoded and added to the Twitter URL, the link should look like this:
https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=My%20%message%20and%20link%20https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F33wtxZt – the bold part is the encoded message and URL to be shared.

What'sApp

For What'sApp, it's the same process as for Twitter. Follow the same steps for encoding the WhatsApp message as with encoding a Tweet share message, and then add it to https://api.whatsapp.com/send?text= Do not delete this!

For example, https://api.whatsapp.com/send?text=My%20message%20and%20link%20https%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2F33wtxZt – the bold part is the encoded message and URL to be shared.

Email Share

For email share links,  all of the messaging is done within the "Add Link" editor menu. In the pop-up for adding the link, it should default to the "Email" tabe, if not click "Email" in the top right. Fill in the subject line and message body with the share copy. The email address field should be left blank. Then click "INSERT".

Once you have finished editing the button or buttons, click "SAVE CHANGES"

Tracked Links

If your links point to external sites, ie sites not owned by CIWF they will not need any tracking and there is nothing extra for you to do.

If your links point to an Engaging Networks page (action/donation/data capture/signup) your link will need to have an appeal code and UTM tracking added. If the link points to an Umbraco page (all CIWF domain pages) your link will need UTM parameter tracking. 

See the tracking guide for guidance or ask for support from the Digital Team if you have never made tracked links before.

Sign Off

The sign-off block is not dissimilar to the image and text blocks. In the text editor area add the closing copy.

Change the signature image by clicking the cog icon and selecting "REMOVE IMAGE", and then adding in a new one. These images should be cropped to portrait format and meet the size guidelines provided in the Images section. Don’t forget to add the alt text once you have changed the image!

The Sender’s Name and Sender’s Position fields are just plain text. They will be automatically added in bold. You don’t have to fill both in – you can choose to leave one of the fields blank if preferred.

Click "SAVE CHANGES" when edits are done.

Forward This Email

There is a "FORWARD THIS EMAIL" function in the "INSERT > QUICK LINKS" menu in the editor toolbar that you can add within the cog icon menu.

Review Save and Test

Once you're finished editing, then click "PREVIEW" in the top right to review how it looks. Then Select "SAVE AND NEXT" to save the progress and changes to the email or "MAKE MORE CHANGES" in the top left to make more edits.

Important! You must select "SAVE AND NEXT" when you are happy with your changes. If you close the window without doing this all changes will be lost.

Don’t forget, that you can move blocks around using the drag-and-drop functionality.

From the setup page, you can "PREVIEW" and preview how it looks in both desktop and mobile views. From the same setup area, you can "SEND A TEST". Enter the email address you wish to send a test to. You should send yourself a test and check it on both desktop and mobile in the email client applications. Click all the links to make sure they work and that they go to the right places and check everything looks good.

Self-test checklist

• Do the links work
• Do the links point to the right place
• Does the email look nice in your inbox - both desktop and mobile
• Make sure the template is not broken
• To the best of your knowledge is the tracking correct - see tracking guide
• Is there alt text on the images

Digital Team Test

When you are happy with the email, send a test to the Digital Team member assigned to your digital email test case. Raise cases in SalesForce for email testing at least 3 working days ahead of when you need to send it or schedule it.

Simple Email Template

Customising Content

Logo

At the top of the template there is a generic CIWF logo. This can be removed by selecting the block, then clicking on the bin icon if this is not wanted.

Adding Copy

Always copy and paste as plain text if copying content from another document like Word. Do not change the template Font or text size. Paragraph text should be Montserrat and 16px. Check no formatting has been carried over from external documents by highlighting the text and checking the settings in the toolbar.

References or footnotes can be 14px. There is an example text in the template. 

Carefully edit the sign-off information as required.

Use the toolbar to add bold or italics. Please use sparingly. Only use in small sections to highlight keywords. For accessibility reasons, do not make whole paragraphs or large sections of text bold or italicised. 

Personalisation

From the toolbar click on "Insert" to add personalised text. Select from the dropdown which personalisation address you want. 

Add a generic fallback value after the = and before ] to populate an entry when the data is missing from the contact record.

Custom date format

Customise the date format from the "Insert" menu in the toolbar. Select "Date" from the drop-down, and the format you want from the list. The date will automatically display the current date.

Custom personalisation

Insert custom data held against your contact records using the "Insert" menu in the toolbar. Select "Custom fields" from the drop-down. The information needs to be supplied in your Excel contact list as a field when imported to SalesForce. The contact list will need to be available in Campaign Monitor. Select the contact list from the drop-down, then the custom field you want to insert.

Adding hyperlinks

To add hyperlinks to text: select the text to add a hyperlink to. Click on the chain icon in the toolbar. In the text field add the full URL including https:// to the text field eg "https://mywebpage.org" or "mailto:youremailaddress@gmail.com" to add an email link.

If your links point to an Engaging Networks or END.IT page (action/donation/data capture/signup) your link will require an appeal code and UTM tracking. If the link points to an Umbraco page (all CIWF domain pages) or other CIWF-owned pages, your link will need UTM parameter tracking. 

See the tracking guide for guidance or ask for support from the Digital Team if you have never made tracked links before.

Additional optional content

Some additional content options can be selected from the left-hand side panel menu. It is recommended that these types of emails do not contain images as this can result in them being flagged as Marketing emails by some email clients. Business email clients are more sensitive to SPAM and Promotion flags.

This template intends to mimic the email that might otherwise have been sent from Outlook. It offers the ability to send to a larger group of contacts with ease, and offers reporting insights that would otherwise not be obtained.

Review Save and Test

Once you're finished editing, then click "PREVIEW" in the top right to review how it looks. Then Select "SAVE AND NEXT" to save the progress and changes to the email or "MAKE MORE CHANGES" in the top left to make more edits.

Important! You must select "SAVE AND NEXT" when you are happy with your changes. If you close the window without doing this all changes will be lost.

From the setup page, you can "PREVIEW" and preview how it looks in both desktop and mobile views. From the same setup area, you can "SEND A TEST". Enter the email address you wish to send a test to. You should send yourself a test and check it on both desktop and mobile in the email client applications. Click all the links to make sure they work and that they go to the right places and check everything looks good.

Self-test checklist

• Check all the text is in Monstrat and 16px for body copy, 14px for references/footnotes.
• Do the links work
• Do the links point to the right place
• Does the email look nice in your inbox - both desktop and mobile (check in a webmail client such as Gmail and Outlook)
• Is the tracking correct - see tracking guide
• Is there alt text on the images if in use

Simple email template emails don't need to be tested with the Digital team but if you would like a test, please raise a Sales Force case for the Digital team.

Sending the email campaign

Contact CRM team with a SalesForce case request for an import of data to Campaign Monitor. Send them an excel file with your contact data. They will create a contact list in Campaign Monitor to select at the set-up screen. In the "To" field select the button "Select Recipients" and select the contact list to send the campaign email to.

When the email is ready to be sent, click on the "Prepare to send" button in the top right of the set-up screen.

Send the email immediately or schedule for a later date and time. Select the time zone required in the scheduling screen.

Optionally you can add staff contacts to receive a notification that the email has been successfully sent.

Schedule or Send the campaign.

Reporting

After an email campaign has been sent, it will be listed in the Sent Campaign list in the Campaign tab.

Click on the email campaign title name of interest to view reporting data. Data can also be exported from this statistics screen. 

Click on "Preview Campaign" to open a popup window to display a visual representation of the email content.

Compare two or more campaigns

From the Campaign tab, in the "Sent Campaigns" list, click on the three dots on the right-hand side to select multiple campaigns to compare performance.