How do I send a Broadcast message?
While Campaign messages (autoresponders) are sent in sequence, one after another, Broadcast messages are sent once on a specific date and time that you choose.
Use broadcasts to send:
- Newsletters
- Sales Offers
- Seasonal Messages
- Other Date and Time-Specific Mailings
You'll find instructions for AWeber's Drag & Drop Email Builder are below. Instructions for the HTML Editor are further down the page.
Step By Step Instructions
- Click the "Messages" tab and select "Drafts." Then, click the "Create a Message" button. From the drop-down menu that appears, click "Drag & Drop Email Builder".
- At the top of the message editor, enter the subject line for your message.
Note: You can add personalization fields using the "Personalize" button to the right.
If you would like to get started using one of our templates, click the "Templates" button located to the right hand side of the message editor. This will be located under your Message Properties section. Otherwise, you can dip straight into creating your message.
Many templates have color schemes you can select from located below the template itself. Once you've found the template that you'd like to work with, click the "Apply" button at the bottom of the sidebar.
- Now it's time to start using the Drag & Drop Email Builder. The editor is made up of two major components: sections and blocks.
Sections are the areas in a message where you can place your content. Templates come with a number of sections already in place, usually with some placeholder text or images included. You can create new sections for content by dragging a Row element into the body of the message to create a new row. You can also click "Add Left" or "Add Right" from the Row properties on the right-hand side of the editor to add new columns.
This allows you to add content to the new section of your message.
Note: You can also change the alignment of the content in the section: sections can be top, center, or bottom aligned.
Blocks are the actual content in your message (text, images, etc). You can drag and drop these blocks to move them around. To start working with a block, simply click on it. If you wanted to move the block, click and hold down the "Move" option. You'll be able to drag and drop the block into the section you wanted.
Once you've clicked on the block, you'll see the options to "Copy" and "Delete". If you need to use either of these option, simply click the button and the selected action will occur.
- To add new blocks to your message, simply drag them from the left-hand sidebar into your message.
The Paragraph element creates a block of text. Click on the block once you've placed it to edit the text.
The Article element creates a headline, a text area, and a "read more" link. Click the text to edit it, and set the URL of the link in the menu to the right. Some templates may include an image as well - if that's the case, you can edit the image via the menu to the right as well.
The Image element allows you to insert an image into your message. The menu to the right allows you to upload an image directly to AWeber or enter the URL of the image you'd like to display. You can also have the image link to another page when clicked, and provide the text that will appear when someone hovers their cursor over the image.
The Video element allows you to add a YouTube or Vimeo video to your message. This will take a screenshot of your YouTube or Vimeo video and hyperlink the image with the URL of the YouTube or Vimeo video.
The Button element creates a clickable button. To the right, you can change the URL the button is linked to, change the button label, text style, button color, or replace the button with another image.
The Follow Me element adds buttons to allow readers to follow you on Facebook and Twitter - simply add the social media accounts using the menu to the right.
The Product element creates an image which you can replace with an image of your product, along with text for the product's name, description, and price. Finally, it comes with a button that can take customers to your order page. The image and button can be edited via the right side menu.
The Coupon element is ideal for special offers or discounts, with a text area and a dashed border (think a cut-out coupon) by default. On the right, you can add a background image or change the border.
Similar to the Image element, the Logo element inserts an image, but automatically loads your logo if you've set one up on the "List Settings" page.
The Signature element adds your signature file to your message. Learn how to edit your signature file.
The Divider element allows you to add visible separation elements to your message with borders that are dotted, dashed, or solid.
The Share element allows your readers to share your broadcast to popular social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon. Add which services you would like to share to from the Share menu to the right.
The Row element allows you to add new rows to the body of your message. Once you add a new row, you can additional content blocks to that row such as images, text, headlines, etc. You can even add columns to add different elements side by side.
The Feed element allows you to easily connect content feed of your blog or any rss feed to your message. You can instantly pull posts into your custom message template to share these posts with your subscribers. - Once you have arranged the message's layout, you can start entering the actual text content. When editing the text of your message (remember, just click on the text you want to change), you'll notice an Edit block icon beside the element. Selecting this will display a toolbar.
This toolbar will allow you to change the font, size, and other formatting of your text. Simply highlight the text you want to change, and use the toolbar to modify it.
To create hyperlinks, highlight the text you'd like to turn into a link, then click the chain link icon
in the toolbar. In the popup that appears, simply enter the URL you would like to link to.
To use personalization fields, click the "Personalize" button. This will provide a drop down menu where you can select which personalization value you would like to add to your message.
When you select Subscriber's Info, Subscriber's Location, or Your Snippets, the menu will expand with more options.
Note: You can click on the field to change the content at any time if you need to do so. - Once you've completed writing your message, click "Save & Exit" in the bottom right-hand corner of the editor.
Note: The Drag & Drop Email Builder will automatically create a plain text version of your message for you. - Now that your message is saved, click the "Schedule" button to send or schedule your broadcast.
- If you wanted to share your message, click the "Edit" button for the sharing section.
On the Broadcast Settings page, you can choose whether or not to post the message to your Newsletter Hub.
Then, if sharing is on, you can choose to tweet the message or post the link to your Facebook page using the "Social Media" section.
When you're satisfied, click "Apply." - Under the "Who should receive this message?" section, click "Edit" to select the segment of subscribers you would like to receive the message. Here, you can also include/exclude other lists.
When you're satisfied, click "Apply." - To schedule your message to go out on a future date, click "Edit" under the "When should this message be sent?" section. Here, use the calendar to choose the date you'd like your message to be sent. You'll be able to see the dates, some notable holidays, as well as days you've scheduled other messages to be sent. Just click on the date that you would like the message scheduled for. From the left hand sidebar, you can choose the time you would like the broadcast sent.
Once you have a date, time, and time zone selected, click the "Apply" button to schedule the broadcast the be sent at that time. - To add open and click automations, click the blue "Edit" button under the "Do you want automations?" section. In this section, you can choose to add or remove a tag if a subscriber has opened your message. Also, all of the links in your message will be displayed. You can choose to add or remove tags when a subscriber clicks on certain links in your message. Once you have applied or removed your tags, click the blue "Apply" button to save your changes.
- Next, you can select whether or not you want to track when subscribers click the links in your message or be emailed when your QuickStats become available. Click the checkboxes to the left of either option.
- When you're done, click the "Send Message Now" button for your message to be sent immediately.
If you've scheduled your message to be sent on a specific date, the button will be listed as "Schedule Message for [specific date you've selected]."
What if I have issues designing my messages?
AWeber offers hundreds of templates you’re welcome to use! If you would ever find yourself wanting to modify an existing template or would like a custom template built for you to reflect your branding, our Template Team would be happy to modify existing templates or design a custom template for you!
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