We've had a bunch of people questioning us
on how to get rid of the thick blue border around linked images within their email marketing campaigns. I thought it would be a good idea to tell you how to do it.
1. Insert the image in your campaign from the media library.
2. Link the image using the 
button in your Email Canvas toolbar.
3. Right click on the image and go to "Image Properties".
4. In the border box type in a zero for border pixels.
Voila! The blue box disappears.
The other day I was watching the CNN ticker at the bottom of the screen and the sentence looked like this:
"Britney?s children get to see their mom."
Did you ever see this? This ever happen to you? It happens to me in our email marketing campaigns in two ways: When I copy text off of the blog (HTML page) to paste into my Email Canvas in VR, OR when I write the blog first in Microsoft Word, then copy and paste directly into the blog.
What's happening is that Microsoft Word inserts strange characters that replace quotes, dashes and apostrophes like the one example above. Also, if you're copying and pasting right from a web page you may be taking some HTML code you don't necessarily see.
What can you do?
1. If You Use Word - Paste everything to Word first. Then copy what you've pasted. Go to the area you want to paste the copy into in your Email Canvas and highlight it. Then click on the "paste from Word" symbol in the toolbar that looks like this: 
and a screen with a large text field will appear. Paste your text into the screen and click Insert. You may have to choose a font and a size but you won't get any weird characters or formatting.
2. If You Don't Use Word - Instead of pasting the text into Word, paste your text into Notepad if you're on a PC or in TextEdit if you're on a Mac. Then copy and paste your copy into your web document.
Hope this helps, it sure helped me!
Ever have a hard time getting the right image for your email marketing campaigns? Ever thought about creating it yourself but you were too afraid to do it? I know, I struggle sometimes too but I've got a workaround that might help you out. All you need for this is Powerpoint or Google Docs (which is free) and your computer!
Take a Picture, It'll Last Longer
The first trick is to make an image from anything you see on your screen. Here's how you do it.
Mac: "Shift + Command + 4" gets you cross hairs, then just click and ›drag over the area you want to take a picture of and it makes a camera clicking sound. It's saved as a PNG called "Picture 1" or "2" or how ever many you already have. Click on the icon on your desktop and it will open up, then click "Save As" in your "File" menu and save it with the format of JPEG. You've just created your own image without any expensive software!
PC: This seems a bit trickier, but it's probably because I'm a PC moron.
Press "alt + print screen" which copies the active window to your clipboard. Go to "start>all programs>accessories>paint" and paste contents into a new paint window (control + v). In paint you can select the portion of the image and crop it, then save it as a jpg. Thanks to Paul our Customer Service Manager for that one...whew!
Want to take it further?
Drag your new image into PPT if you have it or insert your image into FREE Google Docs under Presentation and create something even further. Got a great picture from the web but need copy to go with it? Type copy in a text box in either of these programs then take another picture and repeat step 1. You've just become a graphic designer. (Ok not totally).
Here's an example...
I was creating fake logos and graphics for our all new pre-designed layouts in our Email Canvas tool. That's right, if you use one of these, chances are it's designed by myself or Carol, our Direct Marketing Manager. I needed a "No Sushi" graphic for the sushi haters and a "Downtown Sushi" logo.
I simply used the fancy "NO" symbol already available in PPT (you can find these images free on the web I'm sure), made it red, typed in "No Sushi" into a text box, then moved the text box over the symbol. Then I took a picture and saved it as a jpg. Voila.
For my Downtown Sushi logo I typed the words "Downtown Sushi" and found an image of a single piece of sushi. I took a picture of the sushi then positioned it right below the copy. I duplicated and arranged it 7 times then I matched the words with the color of the sushi.
Then I took a picture of the final outcome. Pro-fessional!
Check this out, I needed 
a graphic about Josh for a blog post. I dragged his image onto PPT, used the "balloon" graphic from PPT (again I'm sure you can find these images free on the web) and typed copy into a text box, then snapped a picture and saved it.
Cheesy? Maybe, but I got what I needed without having to bug our designers. Got a workaround that lends itself to marketing? Bring it on!
Did you ever want to have all of the newsletters you send posted on your site on a page where all of them are archived? With all of the work you put into them, it's a great way to send people who may have either missed a newsletter or signed up for your email marketing campaigns after you've sent one that may be exactly what they need.
When you create your campaign, make sure you insert the "Hosted Version Link" somewhere in your email. I like to put it at the top.
After you send your email campaign to your recipients and yourself, click on the "hosted version" link in your email.
Copy the URL from your browser and paste it into a page on your site where you've indicated that you'll have your archives, or better yet, have your web designer do it, just give them the links. (Notice the Title of the browser window is your subject line, cool.)Look out for VerticalResponse to have this in a future release so you don't have to play with a workaround but if you just can't wait this is a good idea.
Customers are always amazing me. I always say that a customer can know more about our product than we do. So I'm dedicating a category to "workarounds", that is, for one reason or another we have not gotten to a specific update but sure enough a customer has come up with a clever way around the issue.
The Issue:
"I like your Email Wizard with the nifty borders, but I don't know how to bold, ital, and move things exactly where I want them. Furthermore I'd love to put trackable links in the middle of my content."
The Workaround:
1. In "Preview" click on your computer's "View" then "Page Source".
2. Find <!-- ### CUT AND PASTE BORDER CONTENT STARTING HERE ### --> and <!-- ### CUT AND PASTE BORDER CONTENT ENDING HERE ### --> in the HTML code and copy it.
3. Start a new campaign using "Email Canvas."
4. Click on the "Edit Source" tab and paste the new code into the white canvas.
5. Toggle over to the "Edit Graphical" tab and POOF you see your campaign like you had it in Email Wizard, except now you can use our HTML editor by just selecting the words you want to bold and click the "B" icon.
You can also insert pix from your Media Library, as well as insert trackable links anywhere you want by simply highlighting what you want your link to be and clicking on the link button (shown below). A window pops up to ask what you'd like your link to be, type it in and you've got a trackable link...voila!
Huge Caveat:
Make sure that when you paste your HTML in the Email Canvas and edit your campaign, you remove the old unsubscribe instructions that are included in the bottom of the email. VerticalResponse does not allow for multiple unsubscribes in a single email, since it's confusing to the recipient, especially one that won't work.
Let me know if this was helpful!
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