One of Bandzoogle’s most valuable features is the Mailing List tool. Keep fans in the loop by sending professional mail outs to your mailing list members. You can send show reminders, new music alerts, new blog post alerts, or other friendly updates.

This Help article includes:

  • How to create a newsletter template
  • Newsletter template style options
  • How to send a newsletter
  • Email statistics reports
  • Reusing messages

For information on managing mailing list members, please view the ‘Mailing List Members’ Help article.

Creating newsletter templates

When sending a group email, you have the option of starting with a blank template or designing your own in advance. These are the steps to create one in advance with all the available template options.

  1. From the ‘Mailing List’ tab, click ‘Email Templates’ in the list of options on at the left
  2. Click ‘Design a new template’

  3. Select your style options from the lower portion of the page

    Note: The top portion is a preview of the email template

  4. Enter a name for the email template at the bottom of the page

  5. Click ‘Save’

Your template will be saved and displayed in a grid view in the ‘Email Templates’ tab.

Newsletter template style options

Page

  • Page color: The color on the sides of your content area.
  • Content color: The color of the area where you type your message.
  • Content border width: The size of the border surrounding your content area.
  • Content border style: The style of the border surrounding your content area.
  • Content border color: The color of the border surrounding your content area.

Header image

  • Choose image: Choose an image from your computer, upload one from your Dropbox account, or add one from our gallery of stock photos.
  • Alternate text: This text appears inside the image container when the image cannot be displayed. It helps give context to an image for those with limited accessibility as well.

  • Stretch to fit width: Stretches the uploaded image to the header image area.

    Note: The optimal image size for the email header image is 600 pixels wide.

  • Height: The slider adjusts the height of the header section at the top of the template.

  • Zoom: Zoom in or out on the uploaded image.

    Note: This option is only available if the ‘Stretch to fit width’ box is unchecked.

Text

  • Font style: Choose the font style for your email content.
  • Font size: Choose the font size for your email content.
  • Font color: Choose the font color for your email content.
  • Link color: Choose the color of any links in your email content.

This mail template will now be an option for setting up an email campaign when you click ‘New mail campaign’ in the ‘Mailing List’ tab.

Sending a newsletter

When sending a group email, each member will only see their own email address, not the addresses of other recipients in the mailing list.

  1. From the ‘Mailing List’ tab, click ‘New email campaign’
  2. Select the template you want to use, then click ‘Compose email’

  3. Enter your email settings

    • Your name: This is the name that will display in your recipients’ email program.
    • Your email address: This is the address where replies to your email campagin will be sent.
    • Subject: This is the subject that will display in your recipients’ inbox. It is very important to use a subject that is clear, concise, and welcoming. The use of spammy subject lines may get your mailing list feature disabled.
    • Attach a free download: (Pro plan) Select the track or album you’d like recipients to receive with the email.

      Note: When sending a test email to yourself, a download code will not be displayed. The download code will be generated when the campaign is sent, and this will display at the bottom of the message. Each recipient will receive a custom download code for them to use.

  4. Enter your email message in the text editor area

    • Best practice: Keep your message concise and stick to the point. Most recipients will only read the top portion of your email, so make the first few lines count.

Note: Videos cannot be embedded directly into your email campaign. Email providers will strip out the code necessary for them to display, meaning nothing will show on the recipient's end even though the video thumbnail might display in the preview when composing your mailout. As a workaround, we recommend adding the video thumbnail as an image, and linking it back to your website where they can stream it.

  1. Click ‘Preview Email’

    • Preview this email in your browser: Opens a new browser window to display the campaign outside of an email program
    • Edit, Profile, and Unsubscribe: These are not active links and should not be clicked.
    • Send preview to: Enter an email address and click ‘Send’ to issue a preview of how the email campaign will look.

      Note: Sending a preview to the same address specified in your email address field can cause it to be blocked by your email program. Most mail clients will detect mail being sent to itself as spam. If you send yourself a test message and it does not appear to come through, check the spam folder.

  2. Click ‘Choose recipients’

    • Send only to specific groups: For more information on setting up email groups, please view the ‘Mailing List Members’ Help article.

      Note: If a member is in multiple groups, they will only receive the email campaign once.

    • Send only to a specific city/town: Specify a location and mile radius of members you’d like to reach. This is useful for scheduling event notifications to fans within the geographical area of an upcoming event.

  3. Click ‘Schedule Mailout’
  4. Check the box to confirm you are not sending unsolicited emails.
  5. Select your send option:
    • Send now: The email campaign is sent after clicking this button.
    • Schedule to send later: Select the date and time you’d like the email to be sent. Click ‘Schedule to send later’.
    • Save as draft: Saves the email in your Mailing List tab for later use.

Warning: As per our terms of service, we do not allow the sending of unsolicited email, or contacting anyone who did not expressly sign up to your mailing list.

Note: If you’d like to make your newsletter available on your website or through social media, please view the ‘Sharing Newsletters’ Help article.

You can also access your ‘Email Campaigns’ area from your main Bandzoogle dashboard. Here’s how:

  1. Log in to Bandzoogle or, if you’re logged in, click on the BZ (Home) icon in the top left of your control panel
  2. In your dashboard overview, click on ‘Create a mailing list campaign’ in the ‘Quick Links’ area
  3. Follow the steps listed above to start your new campaign

Email Stats

After your mail campaign has been sent you’ll have access to email stats in the Mailing List tab.

  1. From the ‘Mailing List’ tab, click the percentage link under the ‘Stats’ column
  2. View your stats:
    • Lite and Standard plan: Stats include the number of people who read, did not read, or bounced for a specific mailout.
    • Pro plan: Stats include the number of people who read, did not read, or bounced for a specific mailout, as well as the number of people who clicked on links contained in the message, and the email addresses of those people.

Note: Because some recipients block email tracking, the true "read" count is likely higher than what is reported.

Reusing Messages

After your mail campaign has been sent you’ll have access to reuse the same email. This is helpful if you are sending a similar message and don’t want to have to set up the full email content another time.

  1. From the ‘Mailing List’ tab, click the subject of the campaign you’d like to reuse
  2. Scroll down and click ‘Reuse message’

This will create a duplicate campaign in the ‘Mailing List’ tab, saved as a campaign for you to work on and send when it’s ready.