How do I send a group email message?

The following only applies to those staff, board members, and regional representatives that have permission to send bulk email messages.

IMPORTANT NOTES!

We have taken great efforts to prevent sending email notifications that might be considered SPAM. As I do, the host for our email services takes a dim view of sending unsolicited emails from our domain. Therefore, it is critically important that only those who have opted in to receive email notifications receive them, and that we do not exceed 2000 sent emails per day. Violating these rules can result in our email services being interrupted or even canceled. Additionally:

  • This system may not be used for personal use. Only use the SAFD Email List Manager for legitimate, sanctioned SAFD business.
  • If you have access to more than one list, select the list that targets the correct audience. Put another way, don't send a message to ALL members if you are really trying to reach a specific region or rank.
  • You can create messages as far in advance of sending them as you like. However, messages created for delivery by this system may be delayed up to 24 hours depending on the number of emails already sent in that period.
  • Each message contains an option for the receiver to opt-out of receiving additional emails. We must respect that decision. The subscribe opt-out message must remain intact in all messages sent by the system.
  • Bad email addresses will bounce back to the mail list manager. After three attempts to send the email to a bad address, the system disables that email address from the list. The web administrator is notified by email if this occurs.

Now, on to the tutorial

Logging into your site account and accessing the group message system

  1. You must login to your safd.org web site account to access our mailer. Otherwise, you will get access denied errors.
  2. Access the SAFD group message system at: https://www.safd.org/civicrm/mailing/send&reset=1 The link is also listed under the "Members Only" menu after logging into the web site.

Step one - Select Recipients.

  1. Create a name for your message. Select a naming convention that will help keep your mailings organized and easy to find when you want to review and compare mailing results. For example, if you do a monthly request for regional reports from your member's - you might use the following naming convention: Northwest Regional Call for Reports: 201101. This can be very helpful because you can re-use emails you create, which significantly reduces the time necessary to create and send messages.
  2. As the screenshot below describes, select the group(s) you want to target for your message. Alternately, you can also select groups to exclude, and after you have created messages in the system, you can select to re-use a message. Just remember: Send you messages only to those who need to see them.
  3. After you completed the above two steps, click the "Next" button at the bottom of the screen. You may also select  "Save and Continue Later" to save your message as a draft, or "Cancel" if you decide not to proceed and you don't want to save your message.

Step two - Track and Respond

In most cases, you do not need to modify the default selections in this step. However, there may be circumstances where you need to utilize system tracking and/or autoreply features. It is important to remember that activating these features puts additional stress on our server and they should only be used when absolutely necessary. That said, the following are available choices:

  1. Track Click-throughs - This feature is described as depicted in the screenshot below. When this option is selected, any links contained in your message will first be directed back to the mail system, which records the statistical values of click-throughs. Don't use this unless you really need to.
  2. Track Opens - This feature tries to determine if a recipient actually opens the message you sent to them. If it can, it records the values for reporting use. Don't use this feature unless you really need to.
  3. Forward Replies - As described in the screenshot below, this feature automatically forwards any reply to your message to your FROM email address. You should leave this box checked.
  4. Auto-respond to Replies - In rare cases, you may want to have the mail system send an response to any replies automatically. If you check this box, all replies to your message will trigger an automatic email message to the responding party that simply tells them the message has been received and additional instructions on how to contact the organization.
  5. After you completed the above steps, click the "Next" button at the bottom of the screen. You may also select  "Save and Continue Later" to save your message as a draft, or "Cancel" if you decide not to proceed and you don't want to save your message.

Step three - Mailing Content

  1. From Email Address - Select your FROM Email Address (listed by SAFD title) from the list of available choices. This ensures that any replies will be sent to your email address. 
  2. Mailing Subject - Add a subject line for your message. Avoid using terms that could be construed as SPAM (i.e., "Happy Birthday", or "Hello Again", etc.). Make it something specific.
  3. Use Template - Do not select a template. If you need a custom template for your messages, please contact John Teague for assistance.
  4. Add message content - There are two ways of creating content for your messages. You can create your content offline and upload it, or you can create your message on-screen.
    • Upload Content - Most people won't want to do this. For those who are interested, you can visit: http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC33/Sample+CiviMail+Messages which describes how to create content and then upload it for your messages.
    • - There are two sections here. The first is for HTML content (most people receive their email in this format.) The HTML content section has a WYSIWYG editor where you can add your message. Be careful not to paste content directly from MS Word Documents, and other applications that add their own styles. It is always better to write your message from scratch, and then use the supplied editor to format your content. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
    • Tokens - Tokens are simply snippets of contact information that you can add to the body or subject line of your email. For example, you might want to start your message out with a personalized greeting like: Dear {contact.first_name} - This automatically adds the recipients first name, which is a little nicer than Dear Member
    • There are links next to all fields that accept tokens. Click on those to see and select the available choices. Make sure to insert them where you want them in the body of your message.
    • The second section is for Text-Only versions. This field is optional. If left empty, the HTML version will be converted to plain text for those who have opted to only receive plain text emails. So, you don't need to do both unless you want to.
  5. Save As New Template - Don't save your emails as new templates. You can re-use existing messages.
  6. Attachments - You can add attachments to your documents. However, adding large attachments can seriously effect performance and put stress on our server. Rule of thumb is: Normal text documents - fine; Huge PDF files with lot's of snazzy images - not fine. If you need to provide a large document to your recipients, I can upload them onto the site and we can provide a download link for retrieving them.
  7. Header and Footer -  DO NOT CHANGE THESE SETTINGS. They contain our opt-out links and domain information. Changing them can result in errors and/or violations of policy with our mail service host.
  8. After you completed the above steps, click the "Next" button at the bottom of the screen. You may also select  "Save and Continue Later" to save your message as a draft, or "Cancel" if you decide not to proceed and you don't want to save your message.

Step four - Test

Believe me, you do not want to blindly send a message out to a large group of people without first testing to see what they will see when they receive it. Fortunately, this screen provides a way to do just that.

  1. Send to This Address - Enter you email address in this field and click the "Send a Test Mailing" button. This will send a copy of your message to just you so you can inspect it and then correct any formatting or other errors before you send it to the larger group.

    You can also select a group to send the test mail to. However, I strongly advise against that option since we have no small groups in the system. And the recipients might also get confused if they receive them.
  2. After you completed the above step, and you are satisfied with your message, click the "Next" button at the bottom of the screen. You may also select  "Save and Continue Later" to save your message as a draft, or "Cancel" if you decide not to proceed.

Step four - Schedule or Send

No it's time to schedule or send your message.

  1. Send Immediately - By default, the message system queues all messages to be sent immediately. If you want to send your message out immediately leave this box checked; OR,
  2. Schedule Mailing - You can choose a date (and optional time) when you would like to have your message sent. This is a nice feature because your can create emails as far in advance of sending them as you would like. Here's a good reason to use this:

    You are a regional rep, and you would like to create six messages at the beginning of each year to call on members to submit reports for the TCE newsletter. Well, you can do just that! You schedule each one to be sent automatically on the dates you need to inform your member's. No muss, no fuss. And you can always go back in and change a scheduled message before it is sent. Now that's good organization and time management.
  3. After you completed the above step, and you are satisfied with your message, click the "Submit Mailing" button at the bottom of the screen. You may also select  "Continue Later" to save your message as a draft.

NOTE ABOUT SYSTEM GENERATED MESSAGES

When you opt to send a message immediately, or if you schedule a message to be sent on a later date, the message system runs a check every five (5) minutes to see if there are messages in the queue to be sent. If it finds the message it begins sending it. For larger groups (over 180 recipients at a time) the system will send out messages in batches to prevent servers from being overloaded. We also have auto-throttling features in place to manage the speed in which mass mails are sent, again to prevent server load problems.

Checking the status of your messages

The message system produces a very feature rich set of reports for you to access to see the status of your message, present with a report on the outcome of the message, and more.

As depicted in the screenshot below, select from the "Mailings" dropdown menu at the top of the screen to access your reports and previous messages that were saved as drafts to complete.

If you need assistance, contact the web administrator.