Category: Email Marketing

Our complete knowledge base for Email marketing can be found at: http://kb.blackrocknetworks.com

Creating an e-mail message using our service is a simple process. Familiarize yourself with our sending guidelines. If you send a message that does not conform to our terms of service it will be rejected. The guidelines can be found here: Why was my email rejected?

The following steps will guide you through creating your first email message:

1) Click on “Compose an E-mail”

 

2) Select how you would like to design your message. You can use one of our pre-designed templates or create your own layout from scratch. For the purposes of this guide we’re going to select “Build it Yourself.” Once you make your selection click “Continue.”

 

3) On this screen you can choose between writing straight HTML and using our editor. We recommend  using our editor if you are not familiar with HTML. If you want to send a text only message leave the HTML section blank and proceed to step 4.

 

4) After creating the HTML version of the message scroll to the bottom of the screen. Check the box indicating that you have placed your full physical mailing address in the message. Then click “Continue”

 

5) Create the plain text version of the message. This is important because some recipients cannot receive HTML messages.

 

6) Once again agree that you’ve placed your full mailing address in the message and then click “Continue.”

 

7) Once you get to this screen you’ve created the message. Now you can save the message or schedule it to be sent out to your mailing list.

Our complete knowledge base for Email marketing can be found at: http://kb.blackrocknetworks.com

File Requirements:

• The file can be in .txt (text) or .csv (comma separated values) format (i.e. mylist.txt, mylist.csv) and either tab, comma, semicolon, or colon delimited. We find that a tab-delimited, text (.txt) file works best. If you have the data in a Microsoft Excel file (.xls), you can open it in Excel, then go to File->Save As, and choose ‘Save as type’ to ‘CSV’.
• Maximum file size is 10MB (please contact us if you need to upload a larger file)
• All lists should be cleaned before you import them (i.e. remove unwanted columns, fields, etc.)
• Each member’s email address and demographic data must appear on a separate line.
• Subscribers will see their imported demographic information.
• As per our Terms of Service, you MAY NOT import purchased or co-registered lists

Once you have confirmed that your file meets the guidelines above you will need to import the file. To do this follow the directions below:

1) Starting on your dashboard click the “Subscribers” tab.

 

 

2) Click on the “Add/Import” button.

 

 

3) Click the “Upload a File” radio button.

4) Click the “Browse” button and select the file that you would like to import.

 

5) Make a selection off the “Separator” drop-down. CSV files will always have “Comma” as the value. If you are not sure what to select here you will need to consult with the e-mail service provider or application vendor that generated the file. Click “Continue”

 

6) Now you will need to associate the information in your file to our data fields. Look at the image below for an example. The value on the left, “Email Address”, came from the file being imported. On the right side you would choose “E-Mail address” to associate the “Email Address” values in the file to the “E-Mail address” fields in our database.

 

 

7) The “Advanced Options” section contains two areas. The first “Merge matched records?” is asking what to do if any e-mail address are both on your subscriber list in Email System and the list you are uploading. Choosing “No” will stop the upload if any duplicates are found. Choosing “Yes” will cause the duplicate entries to be overwritten with the values of the list you are uploading.

The second section “Keep first row?” is asking if the first column in your file is a subscriber or if it contains the names of each column. The first line in most files contains column names.

 

8) Make a selection for “Don’t Update Columns with Blank Input.” This will prevent information already uploaded from being overwritten with blank values from your file. Once you do this click “Continue.”

 

9) Select which mailing lists you’ve created on our end that you would like the subscribers off of your file to be part of. Once you make your selections click “Continue”

 

10) Confirm that you have selected the correct lists and agree to our legal agreements and the click “Start Import”

 

11) If the import process goes through you will get a confirmation showing that the import was complete.