Need a "New to Convio" Webinar, Recommendations?

Rebecca Burgon

Hello! I'm new to Convio and I would like to learn how to maximize the tools that are available for email campaigns. What webinars are available and are the best use of my time? Currently the emails that we send out are extremely basic, but I have seen other emails sent out from orgs that use Convio that are beautiful. I would love to learn how to do those types of layouts. Any recommendations?

 

Thanks!

Kent Gilliam

Hi Rebecca,

 

Welcome! We have a large array of resources that touch on a number of topics. We have our Community Webinars page at www.convio.com/communitywebinars. These are broken out mostly by campaign/event type and not really design topics. If you're looking for some email examples to get you started, I'd recommend taking a look at some of the email campaigns we have on our Kits page here: www.convio.com/free_kits. 

 

As for improving your email design, your Luminate Online email tools enables you to send out email as creative as you can create. The only problem is that email services limit what it will read in your code and therefore limit your creativity. For instance, Gmail does not recognize attached style sheets so an email that looks great in Outlook may not even resemble what you created in Gmail. The trick is learning about email services and what they do and don't recognize. We have a "Helpful Links" page that is full of links to resources outside of Blackbaud that I think will help you: https://secure2.convio.net/customer/site/SPageServer?pagename=sm_links. I recommend taking a look at some of the resources under the "Email Creation and Trends" section. There's one in there that will help you create awesome HTML emails and there is also a link for a couple of sites that will allow you to test your HTML before sending it out.

 

Although coding is very important, every amazing email I've ever seen really started in a photo editor like Photoshop. I would recommend taking a stab at building your emails in there first and then replicating it in your email tool. 

 

And finally I'll add... take a look at the code of emails you like. You can usually open an email in your browser or take a look at the source code. I would recommend taking that code and dropping it in an HTML design tool like Dreamweaver and seeing how the email was built. And because Gmail is the most picky about the code, I would recommend viewing the code in a Gmail email.

 

I hope this helps. I can promise you that email design is an art and one that takes time to develop and perfect. If you are not a designer or you don't have one on staff it might be beneficial to secure the help of an agency to help you create a branding design that you can then go with over the next year or more. I had to do exactly that when I was on your side of the window.

 

Kent