I am often asked how to go about editing the messages that my clients send to their audience. With AWeber, I can simply go into the Campaigns area of my dashboard and make changes to the messages that will be delivered to my clients’ subscribers. In this article, I will guide you through the process of editing your campaign messages with AWeber so that you can take advantage of this valuable feature and have a better understanding of what it means to edit a campaign in AWeber.
The Concept of Campaigns In AWeber
To give you some background, AWeber is a versatile platform that can be used for many marketing purposes, but originally, it was created to help businesses grow their email list. As a marketer, whether you’re a solo practitioner or work for an agency, when you set up a Weber account, you’ll see that you are presented with five areas of focus:
- Email Marketing
- Sales Automation
- Webinars
- Conversion Optimization
- Content Marketing
Each of these areas of focus has a specific use case, but the overarching goal is to help you grow your business via email marketing. To that end, AWeber groups all of your email marketing activities—from email campaigns to auto-responders—into a cohesive unit called a campaign. AWeber calls these campaigns “messages,” as they are the strings of words that you might want to send to your audience.
For instance, if you’re running an email marketing campaign for your beauty brand, you might want to use the webinar feature of AWeber to host a free workshop on how to use your specific products. In this case, the message for the campaign would be: “Free webinar on how to use our products.” In another example, you may have a retail store and you want to encourage visitors to make a purchase. You could use a webinar to educate your audience on the benefits of your product and the various styles that you offer. In this case, the message for the campaign would be: “Free webinar on how to choose the right watch for your needs.”
Why are these the ‘right’ messages to send to your audience? It’s because you, as a marketer, have chosen these topics and determined that your target audience will find these messages valuable. You, as a brand or business owner, are responsible for pitching your products and services to the world, and in order to do that successfully, you need to have engaged, compelling messages. With AWeber, you can use the different facets of the platform to determine the right messages for your business.
How to Edit a Campaign In AWeber
With that in mind, let’s take a look at how to edit a campaign in AWeber. First, you’ll want to visit your Campaigns page. Here, you’ll see all of the campaigns that you have setup—and, if you’re like most marketers, you’ll have several campaigns running at any given time. To the right of the table, you’ll notice three small tabs. These are the areas where you can make changes to the message of a campaign:
- Summary
- Design
- Content
In the Summary area, you’ll want to provide a short blurb about the campaign. In the Design area, you can make changes to the overall look and feel of the message. For instance, you may want to modify the colors, the fonts, or the images that are included in the email.
The Content area is where you can actually go in and make changes to the actual text that will be sent out to your audience. In this area, you can add, remove, or rearrange the order of the parts of the message. For example, you may want to add a call to action at the end of the message so that your audience knows what to do next.
As you can see, there are many different ways that you can edit a campaign in AWeber. However, keep in mind that, as a marketer, you’re likely to be spending the most time in the Content area. To that end, let’s take a look at how to edit a campaign in AWeber—step-by-step.
Step One: Set the Campaign Date
The first step in editing a campaign is to set the date that the campaign will be active from. Naturally, you want to make sure that you’ve chosen a date that is relevant to your business. Also, make sure that you’ve chosen a date that is at least three months away. Why? It’s because, generally, people open up to businesses that they know will be around for at least a little while. Also, if you’ve chosen a holiday date, make sure that it’s not too soon (i.e., before the end of this year) or too late (i.e., after the end of this year). This will ensure that you get the maximum number of subscribers.
Step Two: Set the Duration For This Campaign
With the date chosen, you can now set the duration for this campaign. You want to make sure that you choose a period of time that is manageable. It should be noted that, depending on the size and scope of your business, you may want to set this time horizon to be longer than three months. For instance, if your firm is growing rapidly and you want to ensure that you have enough content to meet the demand, you may want to choose a six-month or a year duration.
What’s important here is to pick a period of time that you know your audience will happily receive your messages for. Also, make sure that it’s not too short and that you’ve chosen a duration that is frequent enough to be relevant to your business but not so long that you feel like you’ll lose track of what you’re saying. Ideally, you want to choose a duration of time that’s somewhere in the middle.
Step Three: Set The Target Audience For This Campaign
The next step is to set the target audience for this campaign. Naturally, you want to choose an audience that is relevant to your business. However, there are a few guidelines that you should follow. First, make sure that you’ve chosen a broad enough audience. For example, if you are trying to generate leads for a real estate business, it might not be the best idea to pick the ‘Millennials’ as your target audience. Instead, you might want to pick ‘Gen Z’ or ‘Digital Natives’—two emerging demographics that are already well-versed in using technology in their day-to-day lives. The key takeaway from this step is to make sure that you’ve chosen an audience that is both relevant and large enough to generate results for your business.
Step Four: Set Email Marketing Details
Once you’ve chosen your target audience and determined that this is a valuable audience for your business, you can move on to the next step. Here, you can set various details about the email marketing campaign. First, make sure that you’ve chosen a relevant email marketing provider. You’ll also want to check the pricing for this service, as it might be cheaper than you think. To that end, make sure that you are not being charged too much. Also, make sure to check for junk mail and spam filters because, inevitably, you’ll get some spam during the setup process. You don’t want to damage your business’ reputation by being associated with junk mail, so check your settings to ensure that they are secure.
Now that you’ve set all of that, it’s time to review your campaign. To the right of the table, you’ll notice three small tabs. These are the areas where you can make changes to the message of a campaign:
- Summary
- Design
- Content
In the Summary area, you’ll want to provide a short blurb about the campaign. In the Design area, you can make changes to the overall look and feel of the message. For instance, you may want to modify the colors, the fonts, or the images that are included in the email.
The Content area is where you can go in and make changes to the actual text that will be sent out to your audience. In this area, you can add, remove, or rearrange the order of the parts of the message. For example, you may want to add a call to action at the end of the message so that your audience knows what to do next.