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CopyDoodles Lunch & Learn 9/7/11 – “Get The Word Out! Adding CopyDoodles to Emails”

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Lunch & Learn Important Links:

Lunch & Learn Transcript:

Good afternoon, or morning, or evening, where ever you are in the world. This is Lauren, your CopyDoodles Success Coach.

Today’s topic is Getting the Word Out: How to Add CopyDoodles to Emails. I’m going to be showing you how to add CopyDoodles and CopyComics and then how to layer your CopyDoodles in emails.

A few side notes before we begin, if you want to ask a question, here’s how you ask a question, just type in the questions box. I will be taking some questions throughout, if they pertain to things I’m doing at the exact moment, but if not, then I will answer all questions at the end.

Also, next week’s topic at Noon on Wednesday, will be It’s All About Font and Personalization. Since you are signed up for today’s webinar, you’re automatically registered for next week’s webinar. You don’t have to do anything, but look in your email box and wait for the email to come so you can log in. We’re going to be talking a lot about font and how it plays in with marketing pieces you’re creating. We’ll be covering normal fonts and how handwritten fonts fit in with your pieces.

Also, side note, if you log into the CopyDoodles Access Club, our new September CopyTemplate is posted, it is a thank you letter. You can go into the CopyDoodles Access Club, and you can log in, and you can view the template, and download it along with a video that Mike posted in CopyDoodles Access Club that tells you exactly how to use it, and why he posted this copy template.

And then, it’s time to blow your noise makers, throw confetti, and get ready to party. No, it’s not New Year’s Eve, it’s our Deal of the Week. So, if you haven’t been to Lunch and Learn before, this is my Deal of the Week, you can access our member-only Lunch and Learn deal. And this weeks deal is our brand new CopyDoodles Swipe File Book. This book is originally $147, but until September 16th we are selling it for $97. This is a really awesome, really helpful book with tons of examples from CopyDoodles users.

I put the link up at https://www.copydoodles.com , where you can access all the links from today’s webinar, it’s already up there. So, if you want to head over there now or head over there after the webinar, feel free to. This version, you’ll get an entire notebook, it’s over 700 pages, over 5 pounds of response boosting tips and things like that. So, make sure to check it out, make sure you head over there. There’s a ton of great bonuses too, including the high resolution, full color version of the swipe file book on CD, along with six bonus interviews, like my interview with Dan Cricks on last week’s Lunch and Learn, telling all their juiciest secrets on how to get the best response with CopyDoodles.

Moving on, today’s CopyDoodles Success webinar is all about getting the word out and adding CopyDoodles to emails. Today’s Big Three are about using CopyDoodles in emails is easy. I get a lot of people who constantly email me, “How do I add CopyDoodles to my marketing pieces,” and things like that, “into my emails?” And, it’s really simple, really easy to do.

We’re also going to talk about how to place your CopyDoodles on top of text; there is a way to do that and I’m going to show you how. I’m going to show you quick tips for maximizing your doodled emails. And there’s also a bonus, I’m going to show you how to quickly and easily replicate the little stuff that your graphic designer normally does. You’re going to need to know how to do this when you learn how to layer your CopyDoodles on top of any text in your emails. It’s definitely a bonus that I’m adding in here.

I’m getting a question from Richard, “Are these just good looking ideas, or result proven?” I believe he’s talking about the CopyDoodles Swipe File. So, in the CopyDoodles Swipe File, all the examples are good-looking examples, but in the front we have a ton of people that actually gave us data, before and after images, things like that, that show exactly the type of response that they received.

My Lunch and Learn last week, Dan kind of spoke about the results he received before he used CopyDoodles, and then after he uses CopyDoodles. There are a ton of examples in there that are result-proven, and things like that. All of the people who sent in their marketing pieces, not all of them gave us a response, but they all told us that adding the CopyDoodles onto their marketing pieces did help increase their response, and those are the types of pieces that they sent in to us.

Eric’s asking if these Lunch and Learns are recorded. Yes, they are posted at https://www.copydoodles.com, and I’m also going to be giving you the link at the end of this webinar, so you can head right over there and view all the links, and I am going to post the replay immediately after the webinar.

Moving on, since you are a member of the CopyDoodles Access Club I’m sure you are already familiar with the Copy Bling email I send out each month. And, if you’re not familiar with it or you haven’t caught it in your email box, it comes out once a month on Saturday mornings, the second Saturday of each month. And, it’s going to be coming out on the 10th. So, this Saturday, keep an eye out because I’m going to be showing you, actually, this email during today’s tutorial, and I’m going to be showing things that I’m tweaking in the email as I’m working on it. Make sure to keep and eye out for that, and see the final piece.

Step # 1 are the types of files that you should be downloading from CopyDoodles Access Club. The types of files that you should be using in emails are web graphics, these are .jpgs and .gifs. They are either a white background or transparent background. You can download the print graphics, but you’ll probably have to compress then or your email will load very slowly. What I do, whenever I create emails, is I use Photoshop, I’m going to show you how to use another program today, but I always compress the graphics before I put them in my email, so it doesn’t load very slowly.

So, let me just show you the types of files that you should be using. This is where the replay will be, https://www.copydoodles.com. And then let me log into the CopyDoodles Access Club and I will be showing you the types of files you should be using when you are inserting CopyDoodles and anything into your emails. I’m just going to choose a really quick shape doodle, say I wanted to add this arrow into my email, what I’m going to do instead of just choosing the default .png or the regular print .jpg, what I’m going to want to choose is either a web .jpg or a web .gif. The reason that I choose this is that these are lower resolution, so the file is not as big. So, when you place then into your email program, when the person on the receiving end receives the email it will load quickly in their email viewer. Instead of having to wait for all the images to load, sometimes people get annoyed by that, it takes a while. It’ll load faster if you use these types of files.

If you know how to compress the files, then that’s fine, use .png, use .jpg, use whatever you want, but I just suggest that you use the web graphics before placing them into your emails.

Moving onto Step #2, inserting CopyDoodles and CopyComics into email. So, I’m going to show you how we use Infusionsoft, we use their drag and drop email builder to insert CopyDoodles and Comics into email. In a second I’m just going to show you how to insert a CopyDoodle that I’ve already downloaded and then also a CopyComic that I’ve already downloaded.

What I’m going to show you works the exact same way for Constant Contact, iContact, AWeber, MailChimp, and anything else that you might be using. I tested this on all of these different email programs before I did this webinar because I wanted to make sure that they all worked the same, but they all work basically the same. Some of the features will be slightly different, but you insert CopyDoodles the exact same way you insert any other image in an email program, so it works pretty much the same way.

Somebody asked, “Many times my CopyDoodles in emails show up as attachments, is that because they might be a web-version?” I don’t believe that’s because it’s the web-version, if you’re placing into Outlook or something sometimes that will show up as an attachment instead of in the email, if you’re using Outlook. If you’re following the steps that I show you today though they should be embedded into your HTML email.

I’m going to up our drag and drop email loader. This is my CopyBling for this week. What I’m going to show you is I’ve downloaded two different CopyDoodles. I want to place one of my CopyDoodles into my introduction. As you can see I already have a bunch of CopyDoodles placed. I’m just going to click on the box where I want to insert my image. I want it to go right in here.

I have at the top of my Infusionsoft I have a button that allows me to add a image. When I was using Constant Contact, iContact, MailChimp, all of them have selections on their email programs that allow you to insert an image. So, make sure that you click on that button. It will ask you to upload a new image, or add a new image, if you go into Infusionsoft it just asks you to add a new image. So, I’m going to click on that. I browse for the file, and then I’m going to scroll down.

As you guys know if you’ve been on my previous Lunch and Learns I always store my files on my desktop, it’s just easier for me to access.

I already know that I want to insert this image. I’m going to choose my image and choose open. Next, you’re going to have to choose ‘upload’, you can’t just insert the image. So, I’m going to upload the image. Most email programs will ask you to put in alternative text. This is just text that you’ll insert that relates to the graphic you’re using. In case somebody’s browser or something like that doesn’t automatically open the images they’ll at least see the text and they’ll know what image that you wanted to insert.

I’m just going to type in “food”. I want the text to be to the left of my image. I’m going to place this on the right hand side of this column, then I’m going to choose ‘insert’. As you can see my CopyDoodle automatically inserted. It’s really simple to do.

Next I’m going to insert a comic. So, the comics are a little large scale, so what I did before I uploaded the comic is that I resized the comic to the size that I wanted. I’ll show you how you can do that in a second. I’m going to upload my comic. Again, I’m going to choose the ‘image’ button and choose ‘add new image’. I’m going to browse for my comic and choose ‘open’. I’m going to upload it. My alternative text, I’m just going to put in “CopyComic”. I want my text to be to the right of the image. Insert it. As you can see my comic was automatically inserted into my CopyBling.

If I want to resize this image in my email program instead of resizing it before I pull it in, all I have to do is click on the image and resize it as I would in Word or any other program. So, you can really easily do that. I noticed that a lot of email providers allow you to resize your image directly in your emails too.

That’s how you insert CopyDoodles and CopyComics into email. It’s really simple, really easy. If you use Outlook or something like that it’s going to be a lot different. You actually have to embed the images, and you can probably find the information for how to do through Word or something like that. But, I suggest you use an email provider and you use an HTML email because it won’t attach the images, it will make sure that images are inside of your email and they’ll come up and they’ll look like my CopyBling does each week.

Step #3 is inserting layered files, which are CopyDoodles on top of text, much like people do when they add CopyDoodles on top of a Word program or a Publisher program. You can do this in email, but you have to create an image using an image editing program in order to upload them, so it will be slightly different, you won’t have the same flexibility as you do in Word and Publisher, but you’re still able to do it. I use the Infusionsoft drag and drop email builder again, and this, again, works the same exact way as it does for Constant Contact, iContact, AWeber, you get the deal.

What I’m going to do, because using Photoshop is pretty expensive — I think it’s like $2,000 or something, insanely expensive. If you’re not a designer you’re probably not going to see the value in purchasing it. You’re probably only going to be using to update emails, things like that. But, there is a program that works very much like Photoshop. I’m going to introduce you to that today. It’s called GIMP.

What GIMP will allow me to do is create graphics, much like this graphic here that says “Top Five Take-Aways.” So, I have a circle around the text. I created the text and I placed a circle on top and uploaded the graphic, what GIMP is going to allow me to do.

Here’s what GIMP looks like. You can get the free download for GIMP at www.gimp.org. The link I’m going to give you in a little bit, so that you can go back to get it. It works very, very similar to the way Photoshop does. I usually use Photoshop, so I’m a little more used to those graphics and things like that, but this works pretty much the same way.

On the left hand side you have your toolbox that lets you resize your graphics, it lets you add text to any graphs, anything like that. Then on the right hand side actually lets you have layers. So, if you’ve never used Photoshop what a layer
is — it’s the background of your image will be one layer, then if you place any text on top of the background that will be another layer, and then if you place a CopyDoodle on top it will be a third layer. So, I’ll show you how that works when I pull images into my GIMP.

I’m just going to open up my Lunch and Learn folder. Now, I’ve already downloaded a CopyDoodles coupon border. I thought I could create a coupon or something like that to add to an email. I know a lot of people add coupons into their emails blasts. So, what I like to do is — I’m a Mac user, so I’m used to just dragging all of my images in, so I’m just going to drag my coupon border automatically into GIMP, and it will open it up.

As you can see I downloaded the version with a white background, just because I know this is going to be the very background layer, as you can see it’s my background layer of my file. I figured it was OK to have a white background.

If you want to scale your image — I already know that I want this image to be a certain size, but say I realize the size is too large for my email, all you have to do is click on ‘image’, choose ‘scale image’, and this box will come up. You can change the width if you want by this, you just type in — say I wanted this to be 300 pixels. I click on the height below and I choose scale, and it will automatically resize my image.

I can also resize my image the way I would in Word. What I have to do is choose the scale tool, as you can see it’s this tool right here. You’ll click on it and then you’ll click on the image. You want to scale and you’ll resize it however you want.

If you want your resize to be proportionally correct all you have to do is hold the Ctrl button at the same time that you scale your item and it will be proportionally correct.

The other thing you can do is you can move graphics around in GIMP. So, if I pull in this deadline into my GIMP, as you can see it creates another layer on top of the background. When I want to resize I use resize tool, click on it, and resize my image. So, I want my deadline to be this size. I choose ‘Scale’ and it will automatically resize it.

But, I don’t want this stamp to be at the very bottom of my coupon. So, I’m going to choose the movement tool, which are these little arrows here, click on the stamp and move it around. As you can see, I moved it to the top. If I want to rotate it there is a rotate tool here. If you highlight over any of the tools, as you see I’m doing, it will tell you exactly what tool you may be clicking on. So, it’s really, really simple to find out what you’re using and what you’re doing in GIMP.

I’m going to choose the rotate tool. I’m going to click on the image that I want to rotate. I’m just going to turn it slightly. I’m using two screens, but this box did pop up, and it just kind of gives me the angle, so all I have to do is press ‘Rotate’ in order to make sure this graphic rotated.

The next thing I want to do is I want to add some text to my coupon, just to let people know what coupon I’m offering. So, I’m going to click on the text box here. I drag a text box across my box. I just clicked and I dragged my mouse, in order to make it this size.

Say I am promoting the CopyDoodles Swipe File book, I could write, “CopyDoodles Swipe File book on sale, check it out today.” Normally my copy would be a little better, but I just wanted to do this for you to show. I’m going to close that out. As you can see it already typed my text in my coupon.

I can, on the left hand size under the toolbox, I can choose how I want my text to be, if I want it to be justified, if I want it to be left-aligned, right-aligned, but I want this to be centered. You can also change the font here, if you wanted. You can change any of the fonts, and it will automatically change.

You can also change the size of your font here, if you want it to be larger. And, you can also change the color. All you have to do for color is click on the color box, this color box will come up, and you can just drag this tool here. Say I want blue, drag the tool to blue and then choose what blue I want and press OK.

It’s really that easy to layer your CopyDoodles. Like I did before, I just created a text file and then I put a circle around it and saved it.

So, if I want to import this coupon into my email I’m going to go to file and I’m going to save this file. What I like to do is I like to save my files as the date of the email that I’m sending out. I’m sending this out on 9-10, it’s just going to be ‘Coupon’. As you can see I have this selected as a .png graphic, but I’m actually going to choose a different extension. I’m just going to save this as a .jpg graphic. I can scroll down until I choose .jpg, I’m going to choose save.

It’s going to ask me if I should export it before it can be saved as a .jpg, so that’s fine — because of this several different layers we’re using, as you can see on the right hand side, a .jpg actually flattens the layers together. You want to make sure that it does that because if you’re using maybe a CopyDoodles font, if the CopyDoodles font gets flattened into the image and it becomes one image that ensures the readers of your email will be able to read the CopyDoodles font, even if they don’t have it installed on their computer.

So, I’m going to choose ‘export’. Now this the important part, it asks me my file size. So, if you want your email to load faster you can decrease the file size, but it will cause some blurriness within your image. The more you play around with this and the more you use email and the more you use images in your emails, you’ll figure out what file size will work best for you. I’m just going to leave this at around 75%, and you can play around with it as you like. There’s also advanced options, you can optimize it, you can play around with it if you really know a lot about graphics and you want to do stuff like that. I’m just going to save it.

As you can see in my folder now my coupon is saved. What I’m going to do is I’m going to open up my Infusionsoft email. What I want to do is I actually want to add the coupon to the very bottom of my email. I’m going to scroll down and since this is just an image I’m just going to add an image box to my email.

This will be different for whatever type of email program you’re using. You probably won’t have to pull over an image. You might have to pull over a different type of box. But, if you’re familiar with your program then you’re probably familiar with doing that.

I’m going to double-click to change this image, like it asks. Again, I have to upload my coupon, so I’m going to browse and then upload the coupon that I just created. My alternative text will be “coupon”. I’m going to upload. For this coupon I want it to be centered in my box. I’m just going to insert it.

As you can see my coupon is a little small, maybe I want to go back and make it larger or I can even just stretch it directly here in my email program. And, I’m finished. The next thing I would do is just add a link to this picture so that people could easily click on the picture and go directly to my sale. And, I’m done.

OK, so just some quick tips for using CopyDoodles in emails, like I said before make sure you compress your images because it will take forever for your email to load and people will want to stop reading your emails if it takes so long to open and for all the images to load, especially if you have a lot of images. Like, I use a ton of images in CopyBling, and if the email is too large it might not even get to the person I’m trying to send it to because people’s emails only let certain size files come through.

So, you can either use GIMP, like I just showed, to compress the file, or you can use a program such as ImageOptimizer.net. It’s actually a free program. You upload your image into their website,  you choose how you want the image to be compressed, what size you want it to be, and then it will actually automatically compress the image for you and you can save it directly to your computer.

Make sure you’re using the CopyDoodles Access Club web graphics that I showed you, the .png files and the .jpg files that are for print are sometimes a little larger, so using the .gifs and the web .jpgs will ensure that your file is smaller.

To layer your CopyDoodles on top of text you will need access to an image editing program. You can’t do this in Word, you can’t do it in Publisher, you might be able to do it in Paint, but Paint, again, is very finicky. Using something such as Photoshop, if you have Photoshop, or GIMP.org is a great way to create these files without having any added extra expense.

Then something I didn’t mention is stay away from using CopyFonts. You probably won’t be able to access CopyFonts through your email provider, unless you’re using Outlook or something like that. But, if you use CopyFonts and you just choose the font and send it out to someone, if that person you’re sending it does not have that font installed on their computer the computer won’t be able to read it, and it will switch the font to something like Arial, or Times New Roman, or another font that their computer is familiar with.

In order to use CopyFonts you actually have to embed the font into the file, very much like I showed you how to create a .jpg on GIMP. You have to do something similar to that or something in Photoshop. So, unless you have the knowledge to do that, then just stay away from them. It’s easier to just add CopyDoodles images on top of your graphs.

Again, you can catch the replay of today’s webinar at: https://www.copydoodles.com and you can find all of the links there. I’ll show you the link in a minute. Then next week’s topic is It’s All About Font and Personalization, so I hope to see you on the webinar.

Deal of the Week, don’t forget to check that out. It will end on September 16th at midnight, so make sure you pick up your CopyDoodles Swipe File book for $97, while you can.

Here is the link you’re going to want to make sure you go to when you’re looking for the webinar replay: https://www.copydoodles.com