• What Is Constant Contact?
• Getting Started
• Adding Contact Lists
• Adding and Verifying Email Addresses
• Creating an Email from a Department Template
• Creating an Email from a Constant Contact Template
• Viewing Reports
• Best Practices

Adding Contact Lists

When your department's account is first created, you will need to add one or more lists of contacts. Contacts are the audiences targeted for your email communications. Your department will be responsible for importing and maintaining your own contacts. The primary list, called the “General Interest” list, serves as your default mailing list. Your department should rename this list to match the department name. Additional lists may be added depending upon your department's needs and its target audience.

You add a contact list in one of two ways:

• Type in all email addresses manually
• Import a file containing the email addresses

Importing Contacts

Constant Contact allows you to import contacts from files, such as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Details are provided in the "Importing a List" tutorial listed in the references at the bottom of this page. When creating a file of contacts to import, the column headings must match the field names that Constant Contact uses in order to successfully use the system's personalization and mail merge capabilities.

When you import a list of contacts, you must check all the boxes on the “Permission Confirmation Checklist” window. You are certifying that your contacts have all consented to receiving communications, were not obtained from a third party, and do not contain any distribution lists or email addresses that may be received by more than one person.

Exporting Contacts

If you've added a fairly large list with many contacts, we recommend you maintain these in an external file, such as an Excel workbook. Each time you need to update your contact list, you will need to export the list from Constant Contact (in case any of your list members have updated their emails and/or profiles), modify the file in the external application, and then re-import the updated file to Constant Contact.

External files are best saved using the comma separated value (.csv) format.

To save as .csv in Microsoft Excel:

• Excel 2007: Choose File > Save As > Other Formats. Select "CSV" from the Save As Type drop-down box.
• Earlier versions: Choose File > Save As. Select "CSV" from the Save As Type drop-down box.

Managing Contact Lists - Tutorials

Managing Contact Lists - User Guides