Jim’s MessageFocus fixes

This month we will be focusing on some additional features within the new version of MessageFocus rather than fixes. These new features will help to improve your workflow and make using MessageFocus even easier.

To begin the article I will be explaining how your files can be moved seamlessly into your MessageFocus  file manager, using  new ‘drag and drop’ functionality. Secondly, we’ll look at how you can personalise the subject lines of your campaigns at the click of a button.  And last but not least,  I will hopefully be solving a common problem for some MessageFocus users and preventing any future digital ‘disasters’ by showing you how to correct links in a campaign after it has been launched.

1. ‘Drag and Drop’ files into the file manager of MessageFocus

Have you ever found that you have had a lot of files to upload to the file manager within your MessageFocus account?  Ever wish there could be a quicker, more efficient, way of doing this?  Well, as long as you’re using an up to date version of Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, and the new version of MessageFocus, there is now.

Click on the ‘File Manager’ and, as long as the following message is displayed at the top of the screen, you will be able to use this feature:

MessageFocus File Manager

Highlight the images that you wish to ‘drag’ into the ‘File Manager’ and simply drag them into the ‘File Manager’, like you would in any other system that uses a ‘drag and drop’ interface.  If the red border can be seen round the File Manager, you can then let go of your mouse button and ‘drop’ them into here:

Drag and drop upload

When you have ‘dropped’ the images into the File Manager, you will see, at the bottom of the screen, the names of the images which are queued to be uploaded:

File upload progress

So there it is, a brand new feature which makes multiple file uploading easier, simpler and more efficient. Why not try using it to upload HTML and CSV files as well as your images for a campaign?

2. Adding Personalisation to a Subject Line

To increase the effectiveness of your communications with customers and potential prospects, MessageFocus now allows the ability to add personalisation to a subject line, more easily than you were able to before. To implement this feature, navigate to the campaign options where you will see a new icon at the end of the subject line, which resembles a contact card. Click on the icon and the different system values which you can add to the subject line will be displayed. However in most cases, I would suggest that you would wish to personalise the subject line with contact information contained in your data. Therefore click ‘Personalisation’; select the core table your campaign data is assigned to and select a field to personalise the subject line with:

Give it a try and see how it can work for you.

3. Changing a link within your campaign after launching

Have you ever had that sinking feeling, that you’ve sent an email with an incorrect link?

However, if this eventuality should happen to you, there is a way that a link within your email can be changed after you have launched your campaign. To do this, navigate to the campaign for which you wish to change a link.  Once there, click on the ‘Launches’ link to the top left of the window, then the ‘Publications’ tab and click the ‘Publish Date’ of the campaign from which you launched your campaign.  This should then give you a list of the links which are in your email:

Changing links post launch (before)

As you can see in the list above, there are two links which are incorrect – http://www.adestra.co.  There are two instances of this link; one in the HTML version and one in the Text version and both need to be altered.

Click on the ‘Link Label’ of the link which needs to be amended, and then the ‘Edit/Test’ link.  Here you can test the URL to see if that is correct and if necessary, alter the link label. Once you are happy with the new URL, click ‘Save’ and then the ‘Back to Publication’ link on the right hand menu. From here, you can then select the next link, in the other content part of your campaign (either text or HTML depending on which one you amended first) and make the same alterations as you did previously.

Changing links post launch (after)

As can be seen above, the link http://www.adestra.co has now been changed to http://www.adestra.com and the link label has been amended to ‘Adestra Website’.
I hope that you won’t need to use this function; however, if you do, please be aware that once the change is made, if you click the link again within your email, you may need to refresh the cache in your web browser to benefit from the link amendments.

I hope you have enjoyed this month’s top-tips and feel as though you have gained a little extra insight into the possibilities of the New MessageFocus.

Jim Ellis
Client Services Manager
Adestra Ltd