Your site can send email to the people it knows: a newsletter, news about an event, a notice to the members about the annual meeting. It also sends email by itself, like receipts and renewal reminders, and you can change what those say. This note covers writing and sending an email, what the results mean, changing the automatic emails, and why some people are left out. If you have not opened the tool before, How to make edits on an Avistra website shows the sign-in.
Choosing who an email goes to and reading its results show people's names and addresses, so they need your passkey. Signed in with only the emailed code, those parts ask you to set up a passkey or use it first. How to set up a passkey on an Avistra website walks through it.
Two halves
Choose Dashboard in the bar in the lower right, then Email on the left. Email opens with its own list of sections, in two groups.
- Emails you send: Sent, Scheduled and Drafts. The ones you write.
- Set up: Automatic emails, Templates, Bounced and unsubscribed and Settings. What the site sends by itself, and how all of it goes out.
The kind comes first
Every email you send is one of three kinds, and the kind decides who may receive it:
- Newsletter: only people who asked for the newsletter.
- Event announcements: only people who asked to hear about events.
- Membership notices: members who are Active or Renewal due, for things a member needs to know, like a meeting, a change to dues or a vote.
Each of those can be unsubscribed from on its own, so somebody who stops the newsletter still hears about events if they asked to. There is a fourth kind you never choose: About what they signed up for. Receipts, confirmations, reminders and sign-in codes are only ever about something the person did, so they always go and cannot be unsubscribed from. That is also why stopping Membership notices never stops a renewal reminder.
Writing a new email
New email, at the top right, opens the writer.
- Kind. Choose it first.
- To. Choose one or more groups from People, such as Members, Renewal due or Subscribers, or a view you have saved. Leave out takes a group away, such as the board. Under it, a live count says how many people will get it, and why the rest are left out: they did not ask for this kind, they have no email address, or their address bounces. See who lists them.
- From and Replies go to, which start as your site's name and the address in Settings.
- Subject, and a Preview line, the short line shown after the subject in most inboxes.
- Start from a template, or blank.
- The email, which is built out of blocks. The next section covers it. Insert adds merge fields, such as First name or Renewal date, which show as small chips. Click one to say what it reads when it is blank, such as "Hi there" for somebody with no first name on file.
Your organization's name, postal address and an unsubscribe link for that kind are added to the bottom of every email. You cannot take them out; the law requires them.
The email is a list of blocks
The body of the email is not one long box. It is a list of blocks, one under another: a heading, a paragraph, a picture, a button. Each is edited on its own and moved on its own, so changing the order of an email does not mean retyping it.
Add a block sits beside the email, with the blocks grouped by what they are for.
- Words: Small label, Big heading, Section heading, Paragraph, List.
- Things that do something: Button, Highlight panel.
- Shape: Picture, Divider.
Press one and it is added, and the tool says where it landed.
Press a block to open it, change its words, and choose Done. Every block also has a menu of its own: Edit the words, Move up, Move down, Duplicate and Take it out.
Moving a block, with or without a mouse
Each block has a grip at its left edge. Drag it and a line shows where it will land.
You do not need a mouse for any of it. Put the focus on a block's grip and hold Alt and press the up or down arrow to move it, or use Move up and Move down in the block's own menu. Every move is said out loud for a screen reader, naming the block and where it went.
This builds the one email you are writing. It is not a page builder and it does not touch your website: nothing here changes a page, a post or anything else on the site.
An email written before any of this existed opens in the builder unchanged, with its parts already in blocks. That is true of the built-in templates and of every automatic email your site sends. Nothing has to be rebuilt.
Sending it
- Send me a test sends it to you, with the merge fields filled in as for the person under Preview as.
- Save draft keeps it in Drafts.
- Schedule sends it at a day and time you choose, shown with the time zone, such as "Mon, Sep 22 at 8:00 AM Eastern". A scheduled email can be canceled until it goes.
- Send now asks once, with the number of people, and says it plainly: you cannot take an email back once it has gone.
How it goes out
Email leaves steadily rather than all at once, so it arrives in inboxes rather than spam folders. While it is going, Sent says how far it has got, such as "Sending: 340 of 1,200", and when the rest should be out. Each site sends up to a set number of emails a day, shown in Settings; a send larger than what is left today finishes the next morning. You can close the tool while it sends.
Results
Open a sent email to see how it did:
- Delivered: reached the inbox.
- Opened: at least this many. Some mail apps hide opens, so the real number is higher, and there is no percentage to read too much into.
- Clicked: people who pressed a link, and which links.
- Bounced: could not be delivered.
- Unsubscribed: stopped this kind from this email.
From the people who did not open it, Send again to people who did not open makes a copy addressed to just them, with a subject you can change. It happens once, when you choose it.
Automatic emails
Automatic emails lists everything the site sends by itself, grouped by what it is about, such as signing in, membership, payments and events. Open one to change its subject and words. The parts that must be there, like the sign-in code, the receipt details or the pay link, are added automatically and shown locked. Send me a test shows how it reads. If you change your mind, Put back the original restores the wording we started with.
Templates
Templates keeps layouts to start from: a newsletter, an announcement, a plain note, and any you save from a sent email with Save as a template. A template carries the layout and starter words, never who it goes to. The look of every email follows your site and is set once, by us.
Bounced and unsubscribed
An address that does not exist is never emailed again. An inbox that is full is tried again for three days. Anybody who marks an email as spam is unsubscribed from everything except what they signed up for.
Bounced and unsubscribed lists them. Once a bounced address has been corrected on the person's record, Try this address again lets it be used. An admin can never subscribe somebody again from here: if a person asks to hear from you again, that is recorded on their record, with how they asked.
Settings
Settings holds the name emails are sent from, where replies go, and your Postal address, which is required in every newsletter, announcement and notice. Count opens and Count clicks are on; turn them off if you would rather not know.
Who can send what
Full admins can send every kind and change the automatic emails. Membership admins send Newsletter and Membership notices. Events admins send Event announcements. Website admins send the Newsletter. Sending, and seeing results, needs your passkey.
If you get stuck
Send it to us. Choose Support request in the bar: an email that will not send, a bounce you think is wrong, the address emails come from. How to submit a support request on an Avistra website shows how.