Before beginning to actually create your email or newsletter in LeadCentral, you should do some preparation related both to the communication goals and also the actual elements (images, logos, links, etc.) that will be required to build the email.

Consider Your Goals

The first step in the process is to do some thinking about why you intend to distribute the email or newsletter. What action do you want the recipients to take or what key points do you want them to remember? Who do you want to reach with your mailing? Take a minute to write down the answers to these questions as a way to clarify your goals. Next, write a two- or three-sentence abstract for the email, as well as a descriptive and enticing subject line. For a newsletter, write an abstract and title for each article.

Collect the Content

Images help capture the recipients’ attention and can help tell your story. Locate appropriate photographs. If you will be using videos, gather them and create a thumbnail image of an interesting frame of the video (width 105). If you will be linking to other documents such as whitepapers, presentations, PDFs, etc., identify their location and create a thumbnail of each document (width 128). Include a description of format, based on your companies branding standards. Identify the URLs for any external links to landing pages, offers, media sites, etc. Identify a link label for reporting purposes for each your URLS that is based on your companies pre-determined labeling standard. The link should be short and to the point. If you are going rely on LeadCentral to gather leads based on recipient clicks and opens, determine the keywords that you want to capture and store in the database’s Customer Interest field when a recipient submits a request.