3.2. Emailing and Preparing Letters for Directory Members
To send emails or letters to directory members you first need to locate the companies or contacts you want to mail in the Company or Contact Search. Select the companies or contacts you want to email and click the send mails action button above your results. This will open the Send Mails page.
- 3.2.1. Deciding Who the Mail will be Sent To
- 3.2.2. Creating the Mail
- 3.2.3. Sending Emails
- 3.2.4. Creating Letters
3.2.1. Deciding Who the Mail will be Sent To
The Send Mails page can create both emails and letters. You can choose to send just emails, just letters or a combination of the two.
Tip: You may choose to use email for many of your communications as it is both fast and economical. However, it does rely on you having an email address for all the people you want to contact. If you select the 'Emails, then letters for recipients without an email address' option then all those that can be contacted by email will be, and letters can be produced for those that can't.
When they register to join the directory, Directory Members can indicate that they do not wish to receive communications (other than administrative contact) by email or letter. Directory members that have requested not be be contacted by email/letter (as appropriate) will be excluded from the mailing unless you select 'yes' for the field Is this mail for administrative purposes only?.
You can then choose whether you want the mail to be sent to Companies, Main Contacts only or all Contacts using the Recipients field. To find out exactly what an option will do, click the i icon next to it.
3.2.2. Creating the Mail
Sender Details
Enter the name and email address you want the email to come from. You can use the drop down list to select any Business Directory user to quickly copy their name and email address to the relevant fields.
Although the email will appear to come from the sender details you enter, it will be sent from the directory and will not appear in your Outbox. If you want a copy of the email to be sent to the sender address so that you have a copy for your records, make sure the Copy email to sender? box is checked.
Email Attachment
This section allows you to attach a file to be sent with the email. To attach a file, click the browse button and locate the file you want to upload on your computer. When you send the emails the file will be uploaded and attached.
Content
Enter the subject line and a message content for your email.
You can personalise the emails and letters with information from the Company and Contact Records, as you would when doing a mail merge.
This is done by the use of tags in the mail that will be replaced with data when the emails are sent or the letters generated, e.g. the tag [ContactForename] will be replaced with the contact's forename. Use the Insert Field drop down list in the html editor to insert tags into the message content. If you want to check what the mail will look like once data has been merged, preview the email or letter as described below.
Tip: Most email recipients will be able to receive HTML formatted emails (which enable you to style your text and add colours etc.), however some recipients may only be able to receive emails in plain text. To ensure all recipients can read your email it is a good idea to create your message in both HTML and plain text. Use the radio buttons to toggle between the two message types.
Preview your Mail
You can check what your emails or letters will look like when they are sent by viewing them in a preview window. Click preview email or preview letter to open the preview underneath the buttons. Any tags entered to personalise the mail will be replaced with data from the first recipient in your mailing.
3.2.3. Sending Emails
Click send emails to send your mail to all the email recipients. You cannot undo this action, and once emails have been sent the button will no longer be available. If you selected Copy email to sender? an email will also be sent to the sender email address.
3.2.4. Creating Letters
Click create letters to open the Create Letters page. Click on the link provided to download the letter with your letter recipient data merged in. The document will open in Rich Text Format (RTF) a new window, from where it can be saved and printed. RTF is a format that can be edited in word processing applications such as Microsoft Word.