01. How to use MindFire Asset Manager

The Asset manager is where you will store most of your digital assets such as images, videos, and documents.  This is also where all your campaign related Emails, Landing Pages, Forms and Calls To Action (CTA) are stored and managed.  

Key features of the Asset Manager are:

• Store digital assets and provide a publicly accessible URL address for use in campaigns. (no need to use external storage such as Amazon S3 for campaign assets).

• Store Email and Landing Pages templates.

• Create Email and Landing Pages using the Design Editor

• Upload and store HTML Email and Landing Pages created in other programs as new Email and Landing Page templates. 

• Store and Create Forms, Forms can be edited and saved using the Form Builder

• Store and Create Calls to Action

• Create and Store QR Codes

To access the Asset Manager login into your MindFire account and Click on the  link in the menu on the left side of your screen.  This will take you to a screen like this:

Content:

The Content Tab is for storing images, videos, audio, documents and HTML.  

The supported file types for images are:

Supported File Types for videos are:

Supported File Types for audio are:

Supported File Types for Documents are:

Supported File Types for HTML are:

To add new content, click on the  button, and then click n the folder for the type of content you want to upload, Images, Video, Audio, Documents, or HTML:

Note that you may also create sub-folders in each one of these content type folders for ease of search and organization.  Also note that there is a file size limit of 64mb.  The system will not accept any file larger. 

Click on Upload once you have selected the folder for your content type, locate the file from your local computer, then click Open to upload it. 

Once the asset is uploaded, you may select for use in campaigns, or manage the asset by selecting the gear icon, and chose the appropriate task as needed. 

There are a few ways of using content in campaigns. The most common would be replacing an image in one of the pre-existing template while setting up a campaign.  In this example we are editing an email message using the BluePrint Editor and replacing the hero image in the email. 

Click on the image and the image tools dialog appears, next click on the image icon on the far right side of the dialog (highlighted in yellow here), and the Image Gallery from the Asset Library Content area will appears. Here you may select an image from the library, or upload a new one from your local computer or url if the image is hosted somewhere online, such as DropBox, etc. 

Select the new image you want to use, then click on the image in the preview window to paste into your email (or other asset depending on what you are working on). 

If you are using WorkFlow Designer, see our video on how to use the Asset Picker to choose Images, Emails or Landing Pages from the Asset Manager Link Here

Forms:

The Forms area allows you to store, manage and create response forms for use in campaigns.  Forms contain fields that will map to your contacts, update or append contact information, and even works to add new contacts to your CRM when a visitor who is note a contact completes and submits a form.

The fields in your form are related to the fields in your contact list, or CRM. You may use existing fields in your list to collect information from, or you may add new fields directly from the Form Builder.

You may edit existing forms or create new ones.   To edit an existing form, select it from the list in the Form Library by clicking on it. This will open up the Form Builder.  We have prepared a video series on how to use the form builder and it’s advanced capabilities in our YouTube Channel Click Here to view the playlist. 

EMAILS and Pages

Use the email area to design and save Custom Email Templates for use in Email Campaigns. Use the Pages area to design and save Custom Landing Page templates for use in Capture Leads and other campaigns that use microsites.  Working with Emails and Pages is basically the same process however, you are creating either outbound emails that you send from your account, or inbound landing pages, often the two work together and have similar design elements.  For this tutorial we will walk you trough the features of the Email Designer, and will point out where there are differences for landing pages.  

To open existing emails that have previously been saved in your asset library, click EMAILS (or PAGES if you are working on a Landing Page)

This will open up the Email menu where you can work with any email (or Landing Page) you will find several options:

• Preview allow you to preview the email or landing page

• Copy URL will past the URL for the email into the clip board so that it may be used in another application. 

• Download HTML for editing the actual HTML

• Copy to make a copy of the email or landing page which then can be edited and save on its own.

• Edit, opens the Email Builder or Landing Page Builder

• Hide will remove the Email for Landing Page from view in the library. 

Choosing the Edit option with an existing email, or clicking on the or the button will open the Email Design Editor or the Page Design Editor respectively. These are easy to use drag and drop editors that have a great deal of power to allow you design great looking fully responsive emails and landing pages without coding! For a short tutorial video on how to use the editors click HERE to watch.

Once you have built your new Email or Landing Page it will be available in your Asset Library for use in campaigns, and will appear in the drop down list of available email or landing pages from the drop down list in the various blueprints in the Blue Print Editor, or can be select from the library from the element properties within Work Flow Designer.  To view as short video on how to use the asset picker in Work Flow Designer, click HERE. 

Clicking on the button for either Emails or Pages will open up an area where you may past HTML that has been prepared externally such as in Dreamweaver.  You can create your own email and landing pages for use in campaigns this way just be sure you are using HTML 5, and Inline CSS and store any images or logos in your asset library, and use the asset’s URL from within the asset library as the source (unless the images are stored in another online public repository like Amazon S3 for example.  One the code is pasted into your new template and saved (be sure to give it a name!) you may open it and edit it in the library.

Here’s what the template builder looks like:

CALLS TO ACTION

The final item in the asset library menu is Calls to Action.   Calls to action are banners that can be used for sharing content from your Target Markets with your audiences through campaigns.  These become overlays that your viewer sees when they visit the content from link in your emails and social posts. This one way that we help you create engagement when you are sharing content.  Here’s an example:

The banner at the bottom is your call to action which you configure here in the asset library and is used when selecting content from your Target Markets.  We will produce a detailed article on using this feature separately. 

Also within the Calls to Action menu you can create and store QR Codes.  We’ve produced a video that demonstrates this feature in detail you may watch part 1 HERE, and part 2 HERE.