Documentation Center

Creating and sending e-mails

Creating and sending e-mails in Outbound E-mail involves managing Contacts, creating Content and combining these into a Mailing:

  1. Contacts are the people you send mailings to:
    • You add Contacts to Address Books. An Address Book represents a market segment or interest group.
    • You target the intended audience of a mailing by creating Distribution Lists that contain a subset (selection) of your Contacts.
  2. Content involves the creation and classification of e-mail content:
    • You create an e-mail as follows:
      • Create Components—each Component defines a part of an e-mail (an e-mail fragment)
      • Create a Page—a Page combines content (Components) with layout (Page and Component Templates)
      • Specify Target Groups—when you add a Component to the Page, you can also specify which Target Group(s) the content applies to
    • You classify content using Categories and Keywords. You create Categories and Keywords to:
      • Classify Content—the primary purpose of Categories and Keywords in Content Manager is to classify and tag content (Components). Classifying your content helps you find related content.
      • Classify Contacts—the secondary purpose of Categories and Keywords, which is most relevant to Outbound E-mail, is to specify Contact preferences and interests which you can then use to create Dynamic Distribution Lists and define Target Groups (categories of users) to match Component Presentations to these Target Groups
  3. Mailings combine Contacts and Content. You can also Personalize a Mailing by adding personal details to the e-mail and tailoring the contents of an e-mail message to specific categories of users:
    • Use Merge Fields (in template code or other text fields) to indicate where Outbound E-mail should insert Contact specific information such as name and surname.
    • Use Target Groups to define categories of users (mail recipients) which you can then use to include or exclude certain parts of a Mailing (Component Presentations on an E-mail Page) to. Target Groups allows you to personalize the content of the Mailing to suit the Contact's profile: different versions of the same Mailing are sent to different Contacts.
  4. An E-mail Campaign allows you to coordinate a Mailing campaign by grouping several Mailings together and testing and sending them in one go. You can add Mailings from multiple Publications in an E-mail Campaign. An E-mail Campaign allows you to:
    • Coordinate the sending of a single e-mail across multiple Publications
    • Coordinate the sending of a series of e-mails consisting of, for example, a Start Mailing, Scheduled Mailing, Triggered Mailing and Reminder Mailing

When you have sent a Mailing, you can view the response of your Contacts to the Mailing and use this information to get an impression of who is interested in your e-mail and what kind of content interests them. You can use this information to create Distribution Lists, allowing you to send a more targeted Mailing.