Build an Email Campaign from Scratch

There are three ways to create an email campaign in PropFuel: (1) From a blueprint, (2) From scratch, and (3) From an existing campaign. Read on below for step-by-step instructions for building from scratch.

‼️ Campaign Blueprints offer the quickest and simplest way to create a PropFuel campaign. If a suitable blueprint isn’t available, you can follow the instructions below to build a campaign from scratch.

If you’d like to build a campaign from a blueprint, follow the instructions here, or if you prefer to copy an existing campaign, see the steps here.

• Login to your PropFuel Account

• Navigate to Campaigns

• Click the Create New Campaign button

• Name the campaign, which should be something easy to identify for internal purposes (this will not be seen by your members).

• Choose a campaign type. This step is important, as you cannot change the campaign type after it is selected. Here are your options:

  • Scheduled Campaign: You select specific calendar date to send each check-in to all enrolled contacts. Contacts can be enrolled at any time, and they will receive all questions that are scheduled after the date they were enrolled.

  • Sequence Campaign: This type consists of a series of check-ins with a delay between each step, for you to choose. Contacts begin at the first question upon enrollment and progress through the sequence over time. It’s ideal for campaigns where you’re adding people continuously.

  • External Embed Campaign: Use this campaign type for branch questions or when you want to embed a question into an external location, such as another email or marketing system.

A PropFuel "check-in" refers to a question with action workflows. There are three parts to every email check-in: (1) Questions & Answer Choices, (2) Action Workflows, and (3) Templates.

Part 1 - Question & answers

1. In the email campaign, click the "Design" tab 

2. Click “Add Checkin”

3. Choose your question type:

   • Open Ended

   • Net Promoter Score (NPS)

   • Rating Scale (1-5)

   • Rating Scale (1-10)

   • Yes / No

   • Multiple Choice (Single Selection)

4. Write your question. If you're unsure what to ask, you can click the PropFuel Question Bank at the top of the question box for a list of questions.

5. If your question is a "multiple-choice" type, write the answers to your question in the “Options” section. If it is any other type, the system will auto-generate options accordingly. 

6. Add a Follow-Up Question, if necessary. Follow-up questions are open-ended question that show to every contact, regardless of how they answer the initial question. Follow-up questions should be used sparingly. If you do not want to ask a follow-up question, you can leave that field blank. In contrast to follow-up questions, "branch questions" are common best practice in PropFuel, as they only go to people who answer in a certain way. Learn more about branch questions and creating them.

7. Click “Save”.

Part 2 - Create your Action Workflows (the actions that happens when someone answers in a certain way)

1. Click the right arrow button, which is the furthest button to the right. When you hover over it, it should identify itself as the “Workflows” button.

2. Select “Create New Workflow”

3. You should now see a box with an “if/then” set of triggers.

4. Add a trigger by Clicking “if”

   • If you want to take the same action regardless of the response given, just hit “Save Trigger.”

   • More likely, you’ll want to cater your response to how the member answers the question. Start with one option, and hit “Save Trigger.”

   • There are lots of options here; choose the most appropriate (click here to learn more about workflow actions).

   • Configure your action, and then hit “Save Action”

   • You CAN choose more than one action! Feel free to “Add Another Action” and repeat.

   • Cheat code: you can click “Saved Workflows” to copy a workflow you’ve already used. If you want to replicate this workflow across multiple check-ins, simply give that workflow a name and click the star button!

   1. Select “Question Answered”

   2. You then have some choices to make, based on the type of question you selected. The goal here is to identify what kinds of responses on which you want to take action.

   3. Then add a trigger for the “then”

   4. If on step 3, you decided to cater your response based on how the member answered the question, repeat steps 2-4 as necessary. For example, if you have 5 options in a multiple-choice question and want a different response for each, you’ll likely have 5 workflows.

   5. IMPORTANT! For these workflows to work, you’ll need to turn on each one individually!

Part 3 - Edit your templates

1. Click the gear in the top right corner of the campaign.

2. Select “Templates”.

3. Under “Email,” select “Choose Template” and hit “Select”.

4. Now you can edit your email by clicking “Edit”.

5. The default email text is what you set on your master template, which is often: “Would you mind answering a quick question for us?” Feel free to update this text with whatever context and prompt you’d like. We recommend keeping this brief; the longer the email, the less likely folks will be to see or answer the question.

   • No need to update the question default text - this will automatically update to your question text!

6. Update the Template Settings on the right, if needed - including the “From Name,” “Reply To Email” and “Subject.”

7. Then hit “Save Template.

Repeat the steps above to create as many additional questions as needed to build out your full campaign. A healthy campaign will have multiple check-ins. 💡If you're unsure what questions to ask in your campaign, check out the Campaign Guides. 

1. In the design tab:

   1. If you created a scheduled campaign, adjust the send dates to your preferred schedule.

   2. If you created a drip campaign, you can adjust the timing of the sends to your preferred schedule.

2. In the settings tab:

   • Adjust the sending window to your preferred schedule.

   • Decide if you’d like to send reminders, and if so, choose how much of a delay should there be between the original email and the reminder.

   • NOTE: Once an email goes out, you cannot adjust the send window or reminders for any emails sent, but you can adjust it for future emails in the campaign.

There are a few different ways to enroll contacts to your campaign. Choose the one most appropriate for your situation.

1. If you are uploading a static list, you can do so in the “Enrolled Contacts” tab using a CSV file.

   • This file must have a header row, and a column with your contacts’ email addresses.

   • You will then map the fields from the header row. The purpose of this is to match the fields you may have created already in PropFuel.

   • Click “Review Import” and then import contacts. The longer the list, the longer this may take!

2. If you are using a list generated through an integration, we ALWAYS recommend testing it first! Here’s how you do that:

   1. Create a new tester campaign without a question

   2. Click “Workflows,” and then “Create New Workflow”

   3. Under If, click “Add Trigger” and choose who you want to be added

      • For example, this may be anyone whose membership expiration date is greater than or equal to a specific date, or could be a specific membership type.

   4. Under then, click “Add Trigger,” and decide if this includes them or excludes them from the campaign you are creating.

   5. Turn on the workflow(s) that add them to the campaign

   6. Check the enrolled contacts tab. The full list may take a few minutes to import! Make sure the number of contacts matches what you expected.

   7. Then you can test any workflows that remove contacts from the campaign by turning those on (in the workflows tab), and check that the number of enrolled contacts reduces appropriately.

   8. Once you’ve tested that your list is correct, repeat the process on the real campaign you actually want to send (and enjoy the peace of mind that you have crossed your t’s and dotted your i’s!).

Always test your email(s) before sending! When you select a campaign, select the gear icon and click “Send Test Email.” Repeat for each question in the campaign.

Once you've completed the above steps and you are ready to "turn on" the campaign, you can change the status from draft to "Go Live." You'll want to start at the end of the conversations and turn live any web/embed campaigns first and work your way back to the emailed campaign, which needs to be turned live last (otherwise you'll get an error screen).

And that’s it! If you’d like, you can use our handy checklist to double-check your work. Great job!