Creating a Mailing List (videos)

IMPORTANT NOTE: This article may contain outdated information. For the most up-to-date information related to this topic, please refer to the Hungarian version of this page.
In case you do not speak Hungarian, you can always translate the page with Google Translate.

On this page you can find our three part video series on creating your first mailing list with SalesAutopilot. The first video will provide you with a quick overview, while the other two videos will look at the two pages of the create list wizard in greater depth.

The overview video contains everything you need to know about creating a mailing list, but some of the settings are explained in greater detail in the second and third video.

Overview

The Content of the Video

[0:00] Hi! My name is Justin, and in this video we're gonna talk about how you can create a simple mailing list with SalesAutopilot. This video will be an overview, so we won't talk about every setting. More information will available in other tutorials and videos.

[0:16] Alright, let's get started. First, you will have to open the lists folder and then click on the create new list link, or, if you prefer hiding the tree menu click on this link. This takes you to the first page of the create list wizard. This is where you can see the most basic settings of your list. Here you have to enter the name of your list. "[typing] Demo list" I'm gonna create a Mailing list now, so I don't have to change this. The language of the list is English and the localization is the United Kingdom. This will determine the date format of the list. Here is a setting that we don't recommend that you change. This is primarily for those who are managing more than one business with the same SalesAutopilot account. Then there is the list description. This will help you identify your list in the future. When you are done with these settings, click on the Save button.

[1:09] This is the second and last page of the wizard. Before we talk about the settings here, I want you to see that the list was added to the menu as soon as you clicked on the Save button. Okay. So here you have to decide how your list will work. You have two options. It can either work like a classic newsletter list or like a request quote type of list. The only real difference between these two is how many times a given email address can be added. If you select the Classic newsletter list option, then a given email address cannot be added more than once. But if you use a request quote type of list it can be added multiple times. Here you can see that these are my settings. You can see that some fields have been added to the list automatically. Probably the three most useful fields here are the subscriber's email address, the first name and the last name fields. You don't have to use these, but you don't have to add them yourself.

[2:04] The last thing I want to talk about on this page is the listed column. Once you have created your list, it will have a Subscribers tab. This is where all of the subscribers of the list will be listed. Now you probably don't want to see all of these fields there, only some of the most important ones. So that's when the listed column becomes important. Here you can check any field of your list, and then it will be displayed on the Subscribers tab. Let's say that I don't want the ID field to be displayed, but I will keep the subscription date, the status and the subscriber's email address, and I will add the first name field. In this case, the subscription date is the first field that I checked, so that will determine the order in which my subscribers are listed. To change the order of the fields, simply drag and drop them.

[2:50] Now that I'm done here, I click on the apply changes button. And just like that, I have created my first list. Here are the fields that will be displayed. If you remember, these are the ones I checked in the listed column, and they are also in the order I placed them in. If you want to add more fields to the list, have different fields listed here, or change the order in which they are listed, go to Settings and click on the Edit fields option. This will take you back to the second page of the create list wizard. Here is where you have to click to add more fields to the list. You can also check or uncheck different fields, and change the order in which they are displayed. Let's see what happens. Here is the ID, the subscription date, the status, the email address, and the first name. Perfect, that's exactly what I wanted.

[3:48] As we come to the end of this video, I want to mention that if you click on the name of a list in the left menu, then you will be taken you to the Subscribers tab of the list. That's where all of the subscribers will be listed. And once again, if you want to edit the fields of the list, go to the Setting tab and click on the edit fields option. Thanks for watching and stay tuned for our upcoming videos! Until then, enjoy creating your first SalesAutopilot list and I wish you a lot of success in your online marketing!

Page 1: Basic settings

The Content of the Video

[0:00] Hi! My name is Justin. In this short video we're gonna take a closer look at the first page of the create list wizard. We will cover every little detail that we didn't get a chance to talk about in the overview video. So let's get started.

[0:14] Go to the first page of the create list wizard. You can do that either by clicking on the Create new list link in the tree menu, or if you prefer to hide the tree menu, you can click on this quick link, or this button in the header. Whichever one is more convenient for you. We will start by naming our list "[typing] Demo". The name of the list is very important, and I like to say that it has to be presentable. Now what do I mean by that? If you like to have good statistics about your results, then sooner or later you will start using the Google URL tagging feature. And then, there might be some cases when the name of the list will appear up here when someone clicks on a link in one of your emails. And that's why it's so important that the name is presentable. So let me give a negative example. Like don't write dummy clients, just write clients. Or don't use ripped off newsletter subscribers, just simply newsletter subscribers. Maybe you wouldn't do that anyways, but I just wanted to make sure I get that straight.

[1:12] The next setting here is the list type. By default, the mailing list option is selected. Mailing lists are for managing non-transactional scenarios. So you could use one for sending simple newsletters, operating a system for requests for quotations, or even for managing downloadable PDFs. But these are just a few examples. On the other hand, the order list option is for managing transactional scenarios. That's why it's only available if you are using the eCommerce module. If you don't see the order list option here, then chances are you are not using the eCommerce module. If you want to learn about creating an order list, please read our tutorials related to the eCommerce module. But in this video I'm gonna stick to the mailing list option.

[1:54] I don't think I need to say much about the language of the list. Just know that it will determine the language of the field labels and some other fine-tuning settings. This will not affect the language of your account. Since the only two options are English and Hungarian, and you are watching this video, you probably don't need to change this setting. But I still wanted you to know what this setting is for. And then there is the localization. This will primarily affect the date format of the list. And here, you may be surprised to find more options than just the United Kingdom and Hungary. There is the United States, France, Germany and several other countries to choose from. These countries can all have differences in their date and time format, so make sure to select the one that applies to you.

[2:36] The profiles setting is a quite interesting feature of SalesAutopilot. We see a lot of people using it, even though it only results in chaos. Everything we see in this account is in the My project folder. That's the default profile. And when you create more profiles, you will be able to name them. There's really only two scenarios when we recommend that you use this feature. The first one is when you have two totally independent businesses, there is no overlapping between the two, or there may be some overlapping, but the point is that the owners are the same in both businesses. Like let's say you're running a tanning salon and a scrap yard. You may wanna manage the marketing system of both businesses with the same account, so you would save yourself from having to log out and log in every time you wanna go from one business to the other. That's what the profiles feature was originally created for. The second case when you might want to use more than one profile is when you would like to give different permissions of access to different users. These permissions can be set on a profile-level. Let me illustrate this. The company that runs our Facebook and Adwords campaigns doesn't see our entire system, only the profile set apart for this purpose. This profile contains nothing but the list that collects the subscribers who came through our Facebook and Adwords ads. We like this approach for security reasons.

[3:54] The list description is meant for you, the future you and your co-workers. This will not be seen by anyone else under any conditions, only those people who can log in to your account and edit this list. Thanks for watching, and in our next video, we will move on to the second and last page of the create list wizard.

Page 2: List fields

The Content of the Video

[0:00] Hi! This is Justin again. In this video, we are going to continue our survey of the create list wizard. In our previous video we looked at the first page of the wizard, and now we are going to move on and look at the second page.

[0:14] This is the page where you can edit the fields of the list. The first setting on this page is where you decide how the list will work. This basically refers to how many times an email address can be added to the list. The classic newsletter list option is selected by default. This will prevent people from subscribing to the list multiple times with the same email address. If you are creating this list for your newsletter subscribers, or any other subscribers, don't change this setting. However, if you do want to allow people to subscribe to this list multiple times, select the second option, the request quote type of list. We use this name, because the easiest way to think of this option is to think of requesting quotations. In that case, you definitely want to allow people to request more than one quotation and be added to the list every time. For now, I'm going to go back to the classic newsletter list option.

[1:07] The next thing we can see on this page is that these are my settings. If your account has more than one user, then here you can select which user's settings you want to see. At this point, you may be wondering how a list can be different from user to user. The answer is that the list is the same, it has the same fields with the same labels, but some users may need to work with different fields on a daily basis. So that's why this setting exists.

[1:34] Then we can see the default fields of the list. These fields were added to the list automatically, and they cannot be deleted. Well, the truth is that two of these default fields can be deleted, the first name and the last name, but I don't think that's something you will do very often. So let's take a look at these fields now. The ID field is a simple numerical input field. Its value will be different for every subscriber of the list. I think the subscription date field is self-explanatory. The status can be active, unsubscribed, unconfirmed double opt-in, inactive due to invalid email address, and even seemingly invalid email address but active. I will skip these two fields for now. The subscriber's email address doesn't need to be explained.

[2:18] And then we come to the referrer page. This is for saving the URL of the webpage where the form that was filled out by the subscriber was embedded. This is an extremely useful field. When you are running a campaign with SalesAutopilot, you may only create one form and embed it on many different webpages. In such a case, it will be extremely useful that you can keep track of how many subscribers came from each URL. The email client field is for saving the email client or email service provider your subscriber used when they opened your email. But of course, this field can only contain one email client at a time, which will always be the latest one your subscriber used. The signup form is not to be confused with the referrer page. The referrer page is the URL where the form was embedded. The signup form is the name of the SalesAutopilot form the subscriber filled out. Like this list has several forms, all of which can be simultaneously used for collecting subscribers to this list. But I don't want to click on any of them now because I don't want to navigate away from this page. So the signup form field is the name of the form. And the referrer page field is where the signup form was embedded, what's the URL. The signup status field only applies to multistep forms. Its value can either be 1 or 0. 1 when a visitor fills out every form and 0 when they stop somewhere along the way. I don't think the first name and last name fields need to be explained.

[3:42] The next important thing I want to bring up is that when you add new fields, some will come with a label and a field name. But other ones, like the general fields, will not have these so you will have to create them. Let's see an example "[typing] Pet's name". This will be stored in the database, and this is the value that can be inserted in emails or other communications. So this is the name of the merge tag. But you don't have to remember this value, you won't need to copy and paste it, there will be a very simple method to insert it. Then why does it appear here if you don't need to know it? There are some cases when it might be good for you to know this value. When we get to content block customization, which is a quite advanced technique, it will be important to know the exact name of the fields you want to use. But you generally won't need to know them.

[4:39] Next up is the default value. This isn't used very often. It basically means that when the value of the field isn't defined by the subscriber, but you still want it to be added to the list with a specific value, then you can define that value here. And then, whenever the subscriber leaves the field blank or the field isn't on the form, it will be added to the list with the default value.

[5:01] Then comes the Group column. This is a little more exciting than the default value. This feature was designed to make viewing the list of your subscribers easier and more clear-cut. To show you what I mean, I will create a group called Source information "[typing] Source information" and I will add the signup form and the referrer page to this group. So this is where subscribers come from. I will also assign a color to it. Then, I will create another group called Personal details. "[typing] Personal details". And let's have one more "[typing] System fields". And this group will have this color, while this one will have this uglier, more boring color. And now I can say that the ID is a system field and the subscription date is a personal detail. Let's make the status a personal detail too. The email address is definitely a personal detail, and I think the first name and last name are also personal details. When you start assigning each field to a group, you will see that the system automatically rearranges the fields so that the ones that belong to the same group are next to each other. And for the sake of this illustration, I will add these three to the system fields and these two to the source information. The Email client can also go in the source information group. So I think it's safe to say that it looks a lot cleaner this way, and if you are consistent with the colors you use, you will be able to tell what kind of information the fields contain at a glance. And that will be more and more true as you start expanding your list. Also, when you go to a subscriber’s contact page you will be able to collapse these groups, so you will only see the fields that you need. So this is a very practical feature.

[6:44] This little note icon adds a simple comment. So you can add a short comment to each field. This is especially handy when you add your own fields. Like when you are doing a survey, and you write something relatively short here like "[typing] Used for our 2016 Christmas campaign, can be deleted in the spring." And so I already know when I can remove the field from the list.

[7:06] The next setting I want to talk about, the next option you have is the listed column. This is another very important feature. These checkboxes next to each field allow you to decide which fields will appear when the subscribers are listed. Each field that you see now as a row, will then form a column, and the details of each subscriber will be listed there. Like there could be an email address column, where every subscriber's email address will be listed, or a first name column, last name column, etc. Let's illustrate that. I don't want the ID field to be listed, so I uncheck that box. I will leave the status, the subscriber's email address, the subscription date, and also check the first name and last name fields. The referrer page is too long because it's a URL, but I'm interested in seeing the signup form. Let's change their order a little bit. I could add the pet's name field too, but I don't really want to.

[8:00] I think it's quite obvious that clicking on the red trash icon will delete the field. When you do that, all of the information contained in the field will be lost for every subscriber of the list. So please remember that before you delete a field.

[8:13] Lastly, I want to go back to is what I started with, that these are Justin Alexander's settings. These are the settings that appeared, and this actually only refers to the Listed column. So when I said that I wanted to see Justin Alexander's settings, then the system loaded my previously used settings, if there were any. That is, which fields did I check in the listed column. And now if we were to click on the "Apply changes" button, the system would automatically update my settings. But, if I want every other user to see these settings also, then I can overwrite their previously used settings here. But once again, by default, the new settings will only apply to me. When I'm done with this, I can go ahead and click on the "Apply changes" button.

[8:59] This takes us back to the "Subscribers" page. I'm going to add a subscriber really quick so I could demonstrate some points. You can see the different colors right away. "[typing] alex@salesautopilot.com, Justin, Alexander" Send subscription email, no, that's the default setting. I'm not going to add next, and I'm not going to add next with same data, I'm just simply going to save it. And then I list the subscribers again, and I can see the different colors right away. I didn't fill out any system fields, so that's why you can't see them. But I can easily change that by going to "Settings" and clicking "Edit fields". Here we see that the fields I checked in the listed column, these blue and yellow ones, they were the ones that were displayed. And let's add the referrer page field too. And now when we go back to the "Subscribers" page, you can see that this field can get quite lengthy because it's a URL, and that's why I didn't check it the first time. Also note that I added the subscriber internally, that's why this is the URL, but if they had subscribed on an external page, then you would see that link. So once again, if you want to go back to the second page of the create list wizard, also known as the List fields page, go to "Settings" and click on "Edit fields". And then you will be able to customize your list.

[10:18] Before we finish this video, I want to show you one last thing. This version of the subscriber's page, the contact page. Here you can collapse and expand the different field groups. The personal details aren't displayed down here because they are all very significant fields, like the first name, last name, subscription date and email address. So instead, they are shown up here, because they need to be seen right away. And as I already mentioned before, the system will remember which groups you expanded or collapsed.

[10:50] Thanks for watching! I hope you have found this information valuable, and I wish you a great time setting the fields of your list and a lot of success in your online marketing!