Managing Your Lists

Groups, segments, subscriptions 

Emma allows users to divide their audiences in three different ways: Groups, segments, and subscriptions. Individual contacts may be in multiple groups, segments, and subscriptions at the same time. 

Groups 

Groups are simply lists of contacts. Contacts cannot add themselves to a group when signing up for an email list. When you batch upload new contacts, you’ll be asked to add them to a new or existing group. 

Segments 

Creating a segment allows you to filter your contacts by one or more parameters. Using segments, you can generate a list of contacts who have never opened an email from you, or contacts who are a part of a particular group AND opened a recent email. 

Subscriptions 

Subscriptions are useful for users who have multiple types of emails that they send to audiences.  

Let’s say you send a regular newsletter about departmental Events, and one about departmental News. You could create two subscriptions called “Events” and “News.” You can initially subscribe all contacts to both newsletters. Every email from your subaccount has a link where users can control their subscription status. Rather than unsubscribe from all your emails, a contact can toggle each subscription separately. A contact who only wants “events” can decide to receive those emails, and unsubscribe from “news.” 

Using subscriptions makes it less likely that contacts will opt out of your emails entirely.  

Subscriptions are also important for users who want to encourage people to sign up for their newsletter. Using the "subscription center,” users can create newsletter sign-up forms. You can link to these forms from your website. 

Importing a new list 

Before adding a list of email addresses to your Emma subaccount, first make sure that this is a group of people who have consented to receive emails from you.  

For example, if you collect email addresses from event registrants, the best practice is to ask registrants if they would like to receive email communications from your organization. If you have an existing business relationship with your contact list (e.g. your organization’s students, faculty, staff, fellows, etc), then it is acceptable to upload those contacts into Emma. It is also acceptable to upload a contact list that you used on a previous email management system (such as MailChimp or Constant Contact). 

If you have a list of email addresses you want to add to your Emma audience, you can upload an .xls or .csv file.  

How to import a list  

Watch this training video from Emma, or follow the steps below. 

1. Prepare your list. Create an .xls or .csv file. 
2. If you want any additional information associated with each email address, that information should be separated by columns. For example, if you want to have “first name” and “last name” as separate points of information in Emma, you must put "first name” and “last name” in separate columns in your file. 
3. Emma organizes all contacts by email address. If you have an email address in your file more than once, Emma will automatically de-duplicate it. 
4. Select the “Audience” tab. 
5. Select “Imports” from the left hand menu. 
6. Select the blue “Import Contacts” button. 
7. Click “choose file,” or click and drag your .xls or .csv file into the box. 
8. Fill out the “source” information. This is only for your internal records. The source could be the office or database that provided the email addresses. 
9. Determine how you would like Emma to handle duplicate contacts (see video for more information) and click “continue.” 
10. Match each contact field the correct column in your spreadsheet and click “continue.” 
11. On the next screen, you can add the contacts to an existing group or groups, or create a new group. 
12. On the summary screen, select “Import.” 

Best practices when managing lists

• Only upload information about contacts that is necessary for you to achieve your email goals. Do not add unnecessary information about contacts into Emma.
• Review your manually managed lists at least one time per year and archive any contacts who should no longer be receiving your emails.