Spice up Your Email Campaigns with Autoresponders

Did you know you can also use Jotform as a simple email campaign solution? After you get a users email address, suppose you want to:

• Send an automated reply to them right after submitting the form. This serves as a confirmation that you received their submission.
• Send a follow up email campaign after seven days.
• Then, one more email after 14 days.

On top of that, did you also know that you can create email template designs using HTML/CSS? If not, then this guide will discuss these two ideas:

• Schedule your Autoresponders
• Create Email Templates

How to Schedule Your Autoresponders

First, you should decide on how you want to send your email campaigns. If you’re planning to send two emails within a week interval, you would need two Autoresponders – the first one will be sent right away and the other sent seven days later.

To set up the schedule, click Settings at the top, Emails on the left, then hover over the Autoresponder and click the pencil icon.

Afterward, go to the Advanced tab and look for the Send Emails Later option. Set your desired schedule and don’t forget to hit the Save button.

Schedule selector has different options:

• Right away – the email will be sent right after submission.
• {n} days – the email will be sent {n} days later after submission.
• On a later date – the email will be sent on the specified date.
• {customDateField} – the email will be sent on the date provided on the selected Date Picker element.

As an example, if you will be sending an email right after submission, another email in seven days, and then another in 14 days, you would need a total of three separate Autoresponders with three different Send Emails Later selections.

Of course, you have other options (as shown above). And if none of them will fit your requirement, you can send it on a specific later date.

If you would like your form’s respondents to select the date they would like to receive the email, you can select a Date Picker element from the dropdown list. That way, the email will be sent on the date that is on the chosen date field.

Create Email Templates

Now, we’ll discuss how to enhance your Autoresponder emails by using the built-in Source code editor of the email template. First, you need to be familiar with editing your Autoresponder’s Email Content, and then a bit of knowledge in HTML/CSS. If you haven’t done this before, we suggest you take a look at the How to Edit the Email Template for Notifications and Autoresponders guide before proceeding.

Now, this is where the magic happens.

Once you click the Source code button, it will open a modal popup window where you can design your template using HTML/CSS. If you’re not well-versed in designing emails, you should probably leave this part to your developer or designer. But, what if you don’t have one? Well, we would recommend you stick with the Edit Toolbar shown above. Even without coding knowledge, you can still edit your template with basic formatting options.

To sum it up, your options for customization are as follows:

• Use the Edit Toolbar for basic formatting options if you don’t have a developer or designer and you don’t know HTML/CSS.
• If you have a developer or designer or you know how to design pages, use the Source code button and build the template from scratch using HTML/CSS.
• Or, use readily available email templates online.

For the last option above, here are some online resources where you can grab open source email templates. They usually come in HTML format but some are not using inline CSS, which our Source code editor only accepts. So, you would need to use an online CSS inliner service that automatically converts HTML files with declarations and convert them into inline CSS.

Basically, the idea is to:

1. Look for an existing email template that is in HTML format. It can’t contain any sort of script and should be in plain HTML.
2. If the email template you have uses inline CSS, you’re all good and you may skip step three.
3. If not, use an online CSS inliner and dump the entire HTML codes there. Copy the converted codes afterwards.
4. Paste it on your email template’s source code, save your changes, and that’s basically it.

Additionally, you may need to update some resources on the template you would use, like images, links and URLs pointing to your website, add form field values, and so on.

Feel free to look for other online resources that will fit your needs. For demo purposes, here’s a form with three different Autoresponders using open source email templates.

Just enter your email on the form above to receive the template you wanted to check out.

Comments and suggestions are welcome below. If you have a question, post it in our Support Forum so we can assist you.