Newsletters & Blasts USER GUIDE

Transcription

1 Newsletters & Blasts USER GUIDE

2 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION... 3 INPUTS, TOOLS & TECHNIQUES, OUTPUTS (ITTO)... 5 NEWSLETTERS... 6 STATISTICS QUEUE TEMPLATES

3 Introduction The purpose of this user guide is to navigate Proteon users on how to effectively send newsletters and blasts to their communities. Maintaining solid, consistent communications in a simple, reliable way is the essence of Proteon's group communication features. The two main elements are (1) the most powerful newsletter component for Joomla and (2) a robust blast capability. Both are designed with ease of use and reliability in mind. The newsletter component handles an unlimited number of newsletters and subscribers in just a few clicks. Integrated into the rest of the platform and components, it makes your experience as smooth as possible. Effective group communications are the life's blood of any organization. Being able to get out the word about upcoming events, special issues and promotions of all kinds to the correct people at the right time is not easy to do effectively, unless you do it the Proteon way. There are several elements of an blast that are crucial to overall success. First, is making sure the mail gets to its intended recipient. When organizations use third party services to send their mails they are sending them from someone else's domain. This makes it easy for corporate firewalls to filter those mails in their firewall to "black list" your mail. So that means you won't be able to access your organization during the work day unless you are sending the mail from your own domain. That is what Proteon does. Secondly, Proteon batches the mails and sends them in packages small enough to not be identified as spam. Finally, we actively work with our clients to determine where their mails aren't getting through so they can work with their group's employers to get on their "white list." Our Mission To create world class membership portals for our non-profit and association based customers. Our Vision People have the solutions within themselves and need a tool (technology) and a way (process) to achieve those solutions in a practical, affordable, easy and professional way. Our History Our founder is a 23+ year veteran of the IT industry. He is also a family man who faced exceptional challenges when his two sons were diagnosed with autism. For a long time Mike Holstein kept his two worlds apart, working in the IT industry as a job to provide the necessary care for his family. This was simply not enough. Fed up with the conflicting disinformation regarding the causes and the treatments of autism, Mike finally used his extensive experience and knowledge to directly help both his and other families by developing websites for charitable causes like the Autism Society of Ohio, the Rich Center for Autism at Youngstown State University, the Arc of Ohio and the Arc of Hamilton County. 3

4 With this, Mike saw a great thing. He saw a way that people could come together, using a common portal, to share information, share successes and disappointments, to come together as an online community for the betterment of the organization and those served by the organization. Mike realized he could not only achieve his goals of healing his sons, but he also could help others achieve their goals by offering similar solutions to meet the needs of professional organizations. To help keep the costs for the charitable sites low, Mike used these 'lessons learned' to provide the same online community model to other professional organizations to meet their member s needs. He understood that this wasn't going to be the typical site development /site hosting company. He believes that a true solutions provider should do more that provide a solution then walk away. A true solutions provider is a partner from beginning to end. Our work doesn't end when we develop and cut over a client site, it really is only the beginning of a long-term commitment. It is a true partnership. With this non-traditional model, Proteon Software has evolved into a vibrant growing organization, providing world-class custom portal solutions for online communities of any size and any mission. As a certified Project Manager and instructor Mike and Proteon Software partnered with multiple chapters of the Project Management institute to design and develop membership-driven online solutions. These early chapters have become some of our Flagship Partners featured on this site. The vision has succeeded. Proteon Software is the leading Open Source custom portal solutions provider for non-profits and member associations. With our growth we have not strayed from our core value of helping charities by providing reduced cost solutions. Our success with non-profit professional clients allows Proteon to continue to fund charitable portals. If a client has a particular charitable organization, we can offer that organization a reduced-cost web portal. In some cases the charitable portal can be developed and delivered totally free. This vision does work. Mike's two son's are proof-positive that this vision works. First, through the online community that Mike helped build, he was able to develop a program which has given his family and his sons the necessary tools to deal with and overcome their autism. Then taking it a step further by building a community of like-minded people's experiences and a shared vision. 4

5 Inputs, Tools & Techniques, Outputs (ITTO) 5

6 Newsletters By now you have created your article and want to send information out to your communities. Let s get started. 1. Select COMPONENTS>jNEWS>NEWSLETTER: a. Select NEW for a new newsletter. b. Or highlight an existing newsletter to use as a template for your newsletter. Then select COPY. 6

7 2. SUBJECT. The newsletter will not save without a title. The title is the subject line so be careful what you place in this section. Create a naming convention and follow it. 3. SEND DATE. (2 options) a. Click on the calendar icon. You will notice the calendar loads oddly. At the bottom of the square select the minutes, then hour, then date. This selection has to occur in that order or the date doesn t register. b. Leave blank if you intend on sending the newsletter right away. c. TIP: : For reminder s simply copy the first newsletter then change the subject and send date to reflect the 1 st /2 nd reminder. 4. PUBLISHED. Once the newsletter sends it will update to yes automatically. Leave as default. 5. VISIBLE IN FRONTEND. This allows you to see it from the list of newsletters. Leave as default. 6. HTML MAILING? This should state yes. Leave as default. 7. TAGS. Click on tags to insert an existing article otherwise key in the information you need to share: 7

8 TAGS>CONTENT. Select CONTENT then select the ARTICLE to highlight it. Confirm the Content ID number matching the article ID you selected. Here you can choose between the full article, intro only and the title only. This will depend on the volume of content for your specific blast. The best way to know what works for you is to start creating newsletters and playing around with the settings. i. TIP. Insert {tag:unsubscribe} at the end of every . This allows subscribers to be removed from the list at any time. Insert Content when complete. i. Sometimes the system will place the link outside of a predesigned template. If this happens simply relocate the link and cut and paste into the desired position. 8

9 8. Along the right side are three tabs: a. The LISTS tab is where you will select the audience for your newsletter. If you are making any changes to the default settings you will need to click either APPLY (save and stay on page) or SAVE (save and leave page) for the changes to take place before moving to the next tab. b. The SENDER tab is where you will define: i. Insert your CHAPTER NAME. ii. address the bulletin is coming from. iii. REPLY TO address for replies. iv. If you are making any changes to the default settings you will need to click either APPLY (save and stay on page) or SAVE (save and leave page) for the changes to take place before moving to the next tab. 9

10 c. The ATTACHMENTS tab is where you would upload an attachment that is required to assist the bulletin. 9. Click PREVIEW and take a few seconds to see how the will look once sent to members/non members. Make sure it s exactly what you need. 1. Before sending it out to the masses SEND A TEST to yourself just as a final confirmation that the information is displayed the way you intended. Make sure your NAME and is filled in correctly and click on the SEND TEST icon. a. TIP. Send test s to multiple accounts (gmail, outlook,yahoo, etc) to see how each might get distorted. 2. You should see a blue message: Message sent successfully 3. If you are ready to send the right away Click SEND.. A pop up window will load and provide you with a recap of the lists you are sending to. 4. Click on SEND again only if the volume is under 400 recipients. a. TIP. Leave this window open until ALL the s have sent. If you close before this task is 100% complete the remaining list will go into the queue. (Refer to queue section) 5. If your list size is larger than 400 recipients schedule your blast. This allows the Proteon send mail server to send the s at a pace and across multiple IP addresses in a way that won t get flagged as spam. 6. If in step 3 you scheduled your blast then you good to go. If you didn t simply edit your newsletter and follow the directions given in step When you come back to the list of newsletters notice the yellow light bulb to the left of your newsletter. This indicates a scheduled newsletter has been set. 10

11 Statistics This offers statistics management on the newsletters sent out (number sent, opened newsletters, HTML or text only). 1. Predefined Date.. Here you can filter your search. 2. Report type. Since the Listing report type is more user friendly please select listing and click on REFRESH. 3. Mailing Reports.. This is a list of newsletters that have been sent out within the Predefined Dates you selected. a. Mailing Subject.. This is your subject line. b. Sent in HTML.. This is how many s were sent in html format. c. Sent in Text.. This is how many s were sent in text format. d. Views (from html mails). This represents how many s have been viewed. e. Mail Pending.. This represents how many s have not been sent and are pending. f. Total Sent.. This represents how many s went out. 4. You can click on the subject to get more information around the that was sent. Select the details tab to view the specific addresses. 11

12 a. HTML read. The lists of all who have read the . b. HTML Unread. The list of all who have not read the . 12

13 Queue If you re looking at this section I can assume that you sent an unscheduled newsletter and during transmission the sending process was interrupted. Follow the directions below to send the newsletter to the remaining recipients. 1. Select COMPONENTS>JNEWS>QUEUE: 2. Click on PROCESS QUEUE to continue sending an interrupted OR click on EMPTY QUEUE to cancel sending the . Leave this window open until all the s have sent. 13

14 Templates Templates are the area where you will pre-develop page layouts to make new newsletters with a similar design. Let s say you have study groups, luncheons, dinners, PD days, all of these e can have their own newsletter template if you so desire. If you have little time or man power you can place a Helpdesk ticket with Proteon and have them create your template. Let s create a template. 1. Navigate to COMPONENTS>jNEWS>TEMPLATES. 2. Notice you have a few templates to work with and modify. Choose one of the existing templates to modify by clicking on the title. 3. You can change the Name, Alias, Thumbnail, Description and design layout. Be sure to click SAVE prior to exiting the area or your changes won t stay. 14

15 4. How do you apply a template? Open up a newsletter to be sent to your community. Once you are in the edit mode click on the template icon up top. 5. A pop up window will come up with your template options. Choose the template you need. 6. Choosing your template can only occur at the beginning of your newsletter creation. Once you save or exit the newsletter editing area the template option disappears. 15