Create an email blast
Sending bulk emails is a powerful engagement tactic. It allows you to quickly and effectively message your subscribers with calls to action.
📌 Note: A/B Testing availability differs per plan. For more information on plan types please see the add-ons page in your nation.
Table of Contents
Create a blast
Select a theme
Enter and preview content
Add recipients
Review and send your email
Schedule your email
Clone a blast
Watch a video
Create a blast
1. There are a couple of places to create a new email:
Click the Communication tab to go to your list of broadcasters. Click the New email blast button on the right side of the page.
2. Enter a name (The slug will auto-populate based on the name, but you can change the slug if you like). Leave an optional short description or note in the “Description” text box.
3. If you are including links to your website in your blast, consider checking the provided checkbox. When checked, forms on your website will auto-populate with email information from the recipient’s profile. This could increase the number of people who complete the form, but could cause confusion if the email is forwarded to another recipient.
For example, you send an email blast with a link to your website's online petition. When Jane Doe opens your email and clicks on the link to sign the petition, the form will already have her email address field filled out. She only needs to type in her name and click "Sign petition" in order to take action.
4. If you’d like to copy content from a drafted or sent email, you can use the "Clone from previous blast" dropdown menu.
5. Click Create and edit email blast. You will be directed to the Theme section of your blast.
Select a theme
Under Theme you may choose from a selection of available stock themes. Select a theme by hovering over the thumbnail image and click Use theme. This will save your selected theme and direct you to the “Body” section of your email.
Our default themes all use our drag-and-drop email-building experience. Choose the one that looks right for you, noting that you can edit colors in the email builder itself.
Note: If you prefer our classic email editor (which allows you to edit HTML directly) select one of the classic themes listed below the default options.
Here are the stock email themes that are currently available:
You may return to the Theme section at any time to select a different theme. To create a custom theme, see details below.
When you create a new email blast, keep in mind that the most recently used theme for the specific broadcaster will automatically be selected.
Enter and preview content
To enter content and images for your email blast, click the Content tab of your blast.
Use the content blocks on the right to add new areas to your email. Click on each content block to edit the text or add/remove images.
Content blocks available include:
Text
Text column
Image
Image and text
Button
Social follow icons
Space
Divider
📌 Note: If you want to attach additional files, such as a .pdf, we recommend that you store these files on a cloud storage service, such as Dropbox or Google Drive, and link to these files within your blast. We do not support file attachments to an email blast as these file types tend to be larger, increasing your chances of triggering spam filters and preventing your blast from reaching your recipients.
1. Personalize your blast using smart fields. This allows you to include information from a person’s profile
Name
Address
Phone number
Donation information
Membership information
Point person
Public profile
2. When you save your content, the preview will refresh and update with your changes. Note that you can preview it in regular desktop email format, mobile device format and text format by clicking the corresponding button.
Send yourself a test email before you send your blast. Click Send test email and enter the email address(es) in the text box. Press Send test email.
📌 Note: You cannot send a test message while in trial. Navigate to 'Contacts and billing' > Plan in the top right of your control panel to end trial mode.
When you're finished, click Save and continue.
Add recipients
Select recipients for your blast.
1. Decide whether you are sending this blast to supporters or prospects based on your recipients' . Take a moment to learn more about and how this might affect your .support statusesemailing prospectsemail deliverability
2. Select recipients based on a , , or saved . For example, you may add the subscribers of your weekly newsletter by adding all supporters with the tag “weekly newsletter.” Alternatively, you may choose “All” and select all supporters in your nation, or all prospects. Remember that it is good practice to in order to increase your email deliverability.listtagfiltersegment your email list
3. Click Update recipients to save your selection and Save and continue to be moved to the Review and send section.
Review and send your email
Before you send or schedule your email, you can review the details of your email blast - including how it looks, the recipient list and the content. If you need to make any changes, you can return to the relevant tab and make edits.
Click Send email now to XX people to send your email blast immediately. This button will always display the number of recipients. If you do not see the option to send your email, check to see if you are still in your trial period. Email blasting is only available once your nation is out of trial.
Once you have sent your email, view the results by going to the Recipients or Dashboard areas of your blast.
Learn more about your .email blast results
Schedule your email
If you want to schedule your email for a later time, click Schedule.
A pop-up box will appear. Select a date and time. The delivery must be scheduled at least one hour in the future. Click Schedule to confirm.
Click on the gray date/time button to adjust the scheduled time. Enter a new date or time and click Schedule to save your changes.
Click Unschedule to cancel your blast. You will be asked via pop-up to confirm that you'd like to unschedule the email, click Yes. View all scheduled emails by going to [Broadcaster] > Email > Scheduled.
Clone a blast
Cloning an email blast allows you to create a new blast that is a copy of all the content from a sent or draft blast - including the settings, files, theme, and content.
You can clone a blast in two places:
To create a copy of a blast you are editing, click on the Settings tab. Then, click the Clone this email button and you will be redirected to the new mailing page with that mailing slug already selected.
When you create a new blast on the bottom of the settings step, click the dropdown Clone from previous blast.
Once you've created your new email blast, you'll see that the settings, files, theme, and content have all been cloned.
👉🏼 Next steps
It would be valuable to . understand the results of your email blast
Related HOWTOs
How to optimize email deliverability
Understanding email consent
How to maintain a healthy email list
Understanding spam
Custom logo for email blasts