Send an email

Email campaigns let you write to your donors from Occam: a thank-you, an appeal or a newsletter. You write the email, choose who gets it, save it as a draft, and then send it.

Before you start

• Add your organization's mailing address, which goes in every email's footer. You can save drafts without it, but Send Now stays greyed out until it's added. See Email footer and mailing address.
• To write to a particular group, build a segment for them first.

Write and save a draft

1. In the sidebar, go to Email and select New Campaign.
2. Enter a Subject Line.
3. Choose an Audience:
   • All Donors: everyone in your donor list, including people who have only bought a ticket or signed up for something.
   • Recurring Donors Only: anyone who has ever made a monthly gift, including people who have since cancelled.
   • One-Time Donors Only: anyone who has made a one-time gift. Someone who has given both ways is in both lists.
   • Custom segment…: one of your saved segments. This option appears once you have one.
4. Write the email in Plain Text Body. Type [First Name] or [Last Name] where you want each person's name.
5. To send a designed version as well, tick Add HTML version and paste your HTML into HTML Body. There's no visual editor. Most email apps show the HTML version and fall back to the plain text.
6. Leave Schedule for a future time unticked (see below).
7. Select Save Draft.

The recipient list is fixed when you save the draft. Donors added after that won't get the email unless you select Edit draft, choose the audience again, and select Save changes.

Send it

The draft opens with a Message Preview. Read it through, then select Send Now. There's no confirmation step: the email goes out straight away.

To come back to a draft later, go to Email and select View next to it.

Send yourself a test first

There's no test send, but you can send the email to a segment that contains only you:

1. If you aren't in your donor list, add yourself.
2. Build a segment with one condition: Donor: Email is your email address, typed exactly as it appears on your donor record. Check that the preview finds 1 donor.
3. Create the email with that segment as the Audience, save it, and select Send Now.

When it looks right, create the real email with New Campaign. Or select Duplicate on the test, then Edit draft to take "Copy of" out of the subject and choose the audience. A duplicate goes to all your donors until you change it.

Don't schedule emails

Leave Schedule for a future time unticked. A scheduled email doesn't go out on its own, and Send Now won't send it until the time has passed. If you've set one, select Edit draft, untick it, and select Save changes.

Good to know

• Merge tags must be typed exactly, brackets and capitals included. They don't work in the subject line.
• Emails come from Occam's sending address, on your organization's behalf. Occam adds a footer with your organization's name, mailing address and an unsubscribe link.
• People who have unsubscribed are skipped when you send. They still count toward Recipients and stay listed as PENDING.
• The number next to a segment in Audience is its count when it was last saved. The email goes to whoever matches when you save the draft.
• After sending, the email's page shows Recipients, Sent, Opened and Failed. Occam tracks opens, not clicks.
• Emails can't be deleted, and once sent they can't be edited.