TABLE OF CONTENTS
\
To get access to our Action Network groups, first you must sign up at action network. After that, we will invite you to become an organizer on the group and you’ll have access. Before we do that, you must talk to Daria about best practices and how to organize your data for uploading.
You must also sign up for action network with your union email address, and NOT your Facebook account. Should you leave the union it will allow others to access the information.
Let’s take a look at the Action Network interface.
Once you created an account and get access to your union group you’ll see the Groups you have access to on the left-hand side. You’ll see a blue “Manage” button. Click on that and you’ll be taken to a page where you can
- check your group’s statistics,
- check actions (petitions or forms) created,
- work on emails in progress or view stats of sent emails,
- view and run reports you’ve created.
Up along the top right, under “Start Organizing” is where you’ll find things you can do. Like create an email, create a petition, upload activists, create tags, and more.
Send an email
To send an email we’ll go through a number of steps.
- Create a list
- Create a tag
- Get the list into action network
- Create an email
FIRST. Your excel file. The format is important. It must be a CSV file. You cannot upload a plain excel file. You need to make sure that your csv file follows the format that Action Network requires. Individual fields must be set up for First Name, Last name, Email, zip code (optional), and maybe broadstripes ID. There are options for workplace and department and some other fields. Contact Daria or me if you have questions or want access to more fields.
Prepare your contact list with column headers (first name, last name, etc.) This is important as Action Network ignores your first row of data assuming it contains column headers. Make sure that all your contacts you’re trying to upload all have email addresses, and one email address per row of data. Remove the ones that don’t have email address.
Save your file as a CSV file. Do not upload an excel file. You can get a sample CSV file to download during the upload process.
Sign into action network with your union email address.
Tags
Before you upload your activists you should think about how you want to target them. One way to organize people in your group is by tags. You might have in your group a list of members and a list of community allies who have signed up to receive emails. In that case, you’d complete two uploads, uploading one list and tagging as members, and the other as community allies. As your list grows, you can come back and upload more people to these tags. You can also target people by field in your excel upload. More later.
To create a tag, click “start organizing” at the top right of your dashboard and click on tags.
You’ll be asked to select the list or group you want to administer. Make sure to select your union’s group and not your personal list. If you upload or send an email related to your personal list, we can’t help you because we don’t have access to that list.
Select the list you want to administer, and create a new tag.
Now that you’ve got your csv file complete, and a tag set up, we can upload your list.
UPLOAD ACTIVISTS
Click on “start organizing” again, and click upload activists.
Select the list you want to administer, and click “Add New Upload.”
You’ll see “click here for a sample file” to download a csv template to use for your data.
Browse to your CSV file, name the upload and we suggest using the date of your upload, and click to select tags for this upload.
Note once the upload is named, you can actually select the upload in reports and queries.
Select the tag you want to apply to your upload. Or create a new one.
In the next screen you can match your columns with the Action Network columns.
Then click Finish Upload.
SEND AN EMAIL
Now we’re ready to send an email.
Important to have prepared the pieces of your email ahead of time. You must have the following:
- Subject line
- Name the email comes from
- Reply to email address THAT YOU MONITOR
- Body copy
- And images. (note on the images. They must be formatted correctly for the web, including optimized for size. Images should be no more than about 700 px wide. 350 px is a good size and allows for text to wrap around. (You can check out resizeimage.net to resize your images if you don’t have access to photoshop.)
Click “Start Organizing” on the top right and Under “People” select “Emails”.
Select your group to get started:
You have the option to create an administrative title to your email, or if you leave this blank Action Network will use the Subject line. If you’re sending an email with the same subject lines but perhaps different copy, using the administrative title would be a good way to keep them separate.
Fill out the subject of your email, the name the email is coming from, and the email address for replies. The “reply to” email address must be one that you monitor.
Select your email wrapper.
Add your copy and format it. Don’t copy directly from MS Word if you can help it. Or paste as plain text. For Macs, use Text Edit; PC Notepad. Also this tool can help you strip the annoying MS code https://jhy.io/tools/convert-word-to-plain-text .
You can also add links by selecting the text you want linked and clicking “Link” and adding the URL in the dialog box.
It’s important to note you should NOT use bitly or other shortened links in emails. They get caught in the spam filters.
CLIPS
You can use what are called “clips” to personalize your email, if you’ve uploaded data to the appropriate fields. Click on the clips icon and you’ll see the basic information, like first name, you can insert into your emails.
IMAGES
You can add pictures by clicking on the “image” icon above the body copy box.
Then you choose the image on your computer. After you insert the image, you can edit it to align it to the left, right, or center, and even adjust the size. REMEMBER, your images should have been resized to no larger than 700px wide.
Once you place an image, you can and should use an ALT tag to describe the image, and if you want, a URL if someone clicks on the image.
SAVE AND TEST
On the bottom of the screen are options to test your email. Be sure to click the blue “Save and Target Your Email” button. Your email won’t have been saved if you don’t do this.
Select the email list you’ll be sending to, then scroll through the options to include or exclude targets from your email. We know we uploaded our list to a tag, so we want to target by tag. Targeting by tag is toward the bottom on the left.
You can also target by your Upload. (Uploads are listed in Actions on the left hand side).
You can also target by a field value if you uploaded data to a field. Field is just below Tags
Click “Save, Preview & Send.” And/or “Save & Send Test”.
Dobule check your wrapper
At this stage you can select the wrapper for your email. We will have created wrappers for your local group lists.
The email will automatically use the default wrapper for your group. We have created email wrappers for all of your union groups and made that the default wrapper. You may have more than one wrapper for other campaigns in your group.
TEST
At this stage you must send yourself a test. It’s super important to test all links that might be in your emails.
It may take Action Network a little while to send or Outlook to receive you your test.
CALCULATING ACTIVISTS
You’ll notice that at the bottom of the screen action network is working to figure out how big your email list is before you actually see an “Send Email” button. You should refresh this page until it’s ready to send.
Email Results
After you send your email you’ll be immediately taken to a statistics page:
Let’s look at some statistics from a large email sent from our large group.
EMAIL STATISTICS
So I’ll go back to my dashboard, select the group I want to manage, which is the National group, Click on emails and reports, and then statistics.
ACTIONS
Action Network has three types of actions you can do on the platform
- Form—basic signup used on many websites for collecting contact information.
- Petition—has a target, although target is not contacted directly. Also has a comment field.
- Targeted letter campaign—you’ll need to upload a csv of the custom target. Examples include emails to congressional electeds. Or company CEOs.
All three types of actions collect information from the people taking action in the same way: a right-hand sidebar.
This sidebar will always, by default, collect First Name, Last Name, Email Address, and ZIP Code. If the person signing up lives outside the United States, they can click a link that says “Outside the US?” and be shown an expanded series of options to describe their geography.
But you can also use the right-hand sidebar to get other kinds of information about people that can help you communicate with them about this or future issues. We’ll go over that.
Set up a petition
Like the email, petitions have specific elements. And all content should be legalized ahead of time.
- Title
- An introduction (should be short giving the background why it’s important)
- Target, who are you petitioning (Just for display, will not actually send petition to target. That’s a targeted letter campaign.)
- The exact language of the petition. This should look like a letter to the target.
You should remove yourself as the creator, but you must select a group under “Sponsored by.”
You can add a banner image here. (Will be cropped, so if you can make it 1500x600px wide (at https://resizeimage.net/)
Further down the page you fill out the exact text of the petition that will be delivered to the target.
On the right-hand side, you’ll see a goal slider that you can turn on or off. We recommend leaving the goal slider off until you have a substantial number of signers.
ADDITIONAL FORM QUESTIONS
Also on the right-hand side, you can select additional form questions if you want by clicking the blue “EDIT FORM” button. A screen will pop up with prebuilt questions can add to your petition. For example Mobile phone and Mobile Opt In (to receive Text messages.
You can reorder the fields in the top section of the petition by click and dragging the field to its new position.
Make sure to save your draft of the form fields.
Then click “Save and Go to Next Step”
THANK YOU OPTIONS (NOTE YOU WILL ADD SHARE OPTIONS AFTER YOU PUBLISH THE PETITION)
The page has default Thank you language but you should personalize it here.
Click Save Draft or Save and Publish.
PUBLISH AND WRAPPER
After you create your Action/Petition/Form, make it live by clicking the Publish button.
Then you can select a wrapper. This is important. Make sure to select a wrapper. Your default wrapper may already be the one you need to use.
RESPONSE AND SHARING OPTIONS
This is totally counterintuitive, but once your petition is live, you can go in to select what you want to appear AFTER the person signs the action under “Response Options.” This is where Action Network really shines. It’s designed to integrate with social media easily.
Click “Response Options” and you’ll see the options to:
- Select a landing page that you created elsewhere, like on your website thanking people for taking action.
- Leave the landing page blank for social sharing options
- Send an email to the person who took action. BE SURE TO EDIT the default email that goes back to the petition signer.
If you leave the landing page blank, you should then select “Sharing Options” to the right of Response Options to configure Facebook, Email a Friend, and Twitter responses.
Make sure to click the blue “Save Sharing Options” button on the bottom of your screen.
Setting up a targeted Letter campaign
Custom Target
Letter campaigns require you to have the email address of your target. Action Network includes target information for elected officials at the federal and state level. If you want to automatically send emails to someone who is not a state or federal elected official, you will need to upload a Custom Target.
Custom Target
For your custom target information you must use Action Network’s CSV file with columns for title, first_name, last_name, zip_code (optional), gender (M or F [optional]), and email to upload. Values for each target in each of those columns are required except gender, which can be left blank ("them" will be used instead of "he/she"). A two-digit country column is optional, and country is assumed to be US if absent.
To create a custom target, go to “Start Organizing” and click on “Custom Targets” on the right. Select your Group and select “Add New Targets.” You can download a sample CSV file from the top of this screen. Be sure to use the CSV file from Action Network as it has the column headers names correctly. You do NOT get the opportunity to match fields here.
Name your upload something unique you can remember, or the name of the targets. Click “Save and Upload.”
If you leave the zip code blank, anyone can send to that target. This is the most common scenario. That target will be presented to everyone. If you fill in the zip code field, targets will be matched with the zip code of the petition signer.
Create the Letter Campaign
Select “Letter Campaigns” from the “Start Organizing” drop down.
Add a title of your action. Before you select your target list, make sure to select the group the action is “Sponsored by.” This will populate the possible target dropdown with the custom target you uploaded to your group.
Remove the creator in the bottom left hand corner. Select the group sponsoring the campaign.
Select your custom target list:
Add a banner image if you wish, and insert the intro text to your letter campaign. The intro should be short.
Select “remove goal slider” in the upper right hand of the screen if you do not wish to show the number of signers.
Save and go to the next step.
In the body box on the left, give your activists letter writing tips, or “Click send letters to send the email below (put the entire letter here) to ‘the target.’”
Add the subject line and the default email letter you want people to send in the appropriate boxes.
Click on “Select Targets” and a box will pop up for you to select your specific target from the target list upload you did earlier.
Start to type in the name of the target and it will appear as an option. Select it, and press the green “Add” button. The click “Okay. All done.”
Click Save and Publish.
Remember to set your page wrapper and also adjust your Response and Sharing options as you do in creating a form or petition.
On the Ground: an Example Letter Campaign
Here's a more complex Letter Campaign that lets workers send different letters to different legislators, which we've set up to thank legislators who voted on our issues.
Organizer asks: We want to create a "thank you" Action Network campaign for lawmakers who voted for our state-wide recall/retention law. We want participants to fill out their address and IF THEIR LEGISLATOR IS ON OUR LIST, it will direct the worker how to say Thank You.
Also, how do we ask people who completed our Action Network letter campaign in the districts above take action on our new THANK YOU campaign?
In the first step of the letter campaign (called “Find Targets”), set your target list to be state lower houses and write text for a generic landing page. You can also edit the form on the right where participants enter their mailing address, but mailing address is REQUIRED for letter campaigns. Click “Save and Go to Next Step.”
On the next page (called “Write Letter Version 1”), we’re going to create the fallback targeting and content for anyone who, despite our best efforts, might be asked to send an email but who lives in the wrong district.
First, click the red “Select Targets” button. To have the safest fallback content for lawmakers who shouldn’t get a thank you letter, click “Add All” and then REMOVE our champions. Click “Okay! All Done!”
Now that the targeting is complete, we add our two pieces of content for this generic fallback targeting. The first piece of content, where Action Network requires “letter writing tips,” explains the purpose of the letter people will send to lawmakers who did NOT vote with us (that is, everyone but the folks you listed).
The second piece of content you need is the sample subject line and letter participants will send, which you put in the box in the right sidebar. Then, on the lower right, click the link called “Save and Add Version” shown to the left of the “Save and Go To Next Step” button.
Now you will see a fresh screen (called “Write Letter Version 2”) where you can target our champions, give participants an explanation of the letter you’re asking them to send, and offer a sample letter.
When you’re done adding versions for your different scenarios, click “Save and Go to Next Step” to set up the thank you page. Once you save the letter campaign action, be sure to edit the Facebook, Twitter, and email sharing options on the Sharing and Tracking tab.
Now that your action is complete, here’s how to ask participants who sent letters last time send thank you letters now.
Create and write a new email celebrating the win and requesting they join in helping us thank their lawmaker.
To TARGET this email, INCLUDE our champions’ districts in the Legislative District box. If you only want people who sent a letter the first time to participate, also INCLUDE the earlier letter campaign in the Actions box further down the page.
…
Setting up an Event
Using Events in Action Network can be a great way to publicize actions. Unlike Facebook Events, for example, setting up events in Action Network can help you determine who in your email list responds in real life, and allows you to follow up with attendees and no-shows via email after the event. You also have more control over how the Event looks online.
Go to the top menu Start Organizingà Events
Required Fields:
Your Event must have a title. You can have an internal title that’s different you’re your external title if that helps you keep track of multiple petition delivery days, for example.
Your event must have a date, a time, and an address. If you want to post a virtual event or online action, your best bet is to create an Action Network Form instead.
Your event must have a description. Keep it to a few sentences that explain what will happen at the event and why someone should go.
Optional Fields:
Host Contact Information
Banner Image
Event Creator
Remove yourself from the Creator and Select the Sponsoring Organization.
Select maximum number of attendees or leave blank for no limit.
The right-hand sidebar
You can edit the form participant will fill out to add more fields just like in a Petition, Form, or Letter Campaign.
You MUST publish the event to get a link to put in an email or on social media. Any link you see before you hit Publish will NOT update with any changes you’ve made
View your published Event
You’ll see the when and where details, a map, the banner image (if you uploaded one),
After you publish, you can edit the Event Thank You, which has Instructions for attendees, and social media sharing options.
Once you publish your Event, you have a few places you can go depending on what you want to edit.
Manage Event
- See RSVPs, download all RSVPs,
- Access Sharing Options to edit the social media (email, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+) that shows up for attendees to share the event with their friends after they sign up.
Edit Event
Change the date, time, location, banner image, encouragement text, sponsored by, maximum attendees, or the Questions you are asking attendees to answer when they fill out your form to RSVP.
From within Edit Event, you can also Save and Go To Next Step to edit the Event Thank You, where you can access Instructions for Attendees.
Editing and Unsubscribing Individual People
