PREPARATION

As soon as you decide you are going to maintain your own email list, you MUST evaluate your computer backup system. Your email list is an important asset to your company and you need to treat it as such. Back it up on a regular basis (daily). I would not advise anyone to manage their own list without a daily backup. End of lecture.

What exactly is involved in managing an Email List?

1. Collect e-mail addresses.
2. Manage email addresses - subscribe and unsubscribe.
3. Send your newsletter.

STEP 1: COLLECT E-MAIL ADDRESSES

1. First create an email address dedicated to manage your subscriptions. This is the email address that your subscribers will use to send their subscribe and remove requests. For purposes of demonstration, we will use newsletter@yourcompany.com.

2. Establish your SUBSCRIBE instructions. To subscribe to our E-zine, send an email to newsletter@yourcompany.com with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

3. Establish your REMOVE instructions. To get off of our mailing list, send an email to newsletter@yourcompany.com with REMOVE in the subject line.

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NOTE:
To make it easier to subscribe and also, to eliminate a little bit of the margin for error, code your links so the subject line is automatically filled in like the examples below.

mailto:newsletter@yourcompany.com?subject=SUBSCRIBE
mailto:newsletter@yourcompany.com?subject=REMOVE

When these links are clicked on, the word SUBSCRIBE or REMOVE is automatically inserted into the subject line.
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STEP 2. MANAGE THE LIST

Now that you have a mechanism for subscribers to send you their email addresses, you need to move those email addresses into a master email list. One of the most common tasks involved in managing an email list is adding and removing names from the list. You will use the software program Inbox Organizer to automate the process of moving e-mail addresses from your inbox into your master list.

Task 1.
Create Your Master List File

Your Master List will be a simple text file. It will have only one field - the email address. Each email address will be on a separate line.

Create an empty text file with your text editor and save the file with the name masterlist.txt. Save the file in a folder called "master".

Task 2.
Download your e-mail for newsletter@yourcompany.com.

Task 3.
Download a FREE Trial version of InBox Organizer -
from http://www.coloradosoft.com

Task 4.
Install InBox Organizer. When Inbox Organizer starts up you will need to configure one parameter before you can use the program. The required parameter is the path to your email directory - so the program can find your Inbox!  Now, there's no need for you go through each message in your Inbox and manually gather this information, because Inbox Organizer does it for you! Without Inbox Organizer, you have to cut and past each piece of information manually. By using Inbox Organizer, you can automate these tasks and save a lot of time!

Figure 2 - Configuration Box

The example illustrated above shows the Inbox file for Netscape mail. The Eudora inbox file is called in.mbx and can be found in your Eudora installation directory. Please consult your user's guide for the name of the inbox file for your particular e-mail package.

Task 5.
Next you click on the Actions menu, to display a drop down box of options. Select Email Addresses.

When the E-Mail Addresses dialog box appears, you are presented with a search options screen. Your selection options are subscribe, unsubscribe, undeliverable, and
custom. Additional search parameters include (1) searching the message subject and (2) searching the message body.

Figure 3 - E-Mail Addresses Dialog Box

Click on Subscribe and also select the options to search the message subject and message body. Click OK.

By selecting these search options Inbox Organizer will find all email messages with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line and also SUBSCRIBE in the message body (just as an extra precaution - in case one of your subscribers made an error during the subscribe process).

When the search is completed, a Searching dialog box will appear indicating the number of messages read and the number of addresses found meeting your search criteria.

Figure 4 - Searching Dialog Box

Task 6.
Next, you are given the option to edit or save the results.

Click on Save The Results. A new window appears displaying the email addresses resulting from your search.

Figure 4 - Save The Results Screen

At this point, you can edit the e-mail addresses in the window as shown above.  You can add, delete, or edit entries as you would in any text editor.

Figure 5 - Actions Menu

You can select the commands to Remove Duplicates or Remove Invalid Addresses from the Actions Menu.

When you are finished editing, you can save the results to a new file by selecting Save As from the File menu  or save them to your master list by selecting the List Management option. You are going to do both!

First you are going to save the results of this batch as a separate list so that you can send welcome letters to your new subscribers.

Second you will select List Management and save the new addresses to the master list file.

Save The New Subscribers File:

To save as a new file, select the Save As feature under the File Menu. Name the file "new022499.txt" and save it in a directory called <subs>.

Process your email in a daily batch and save the new subscribers' email addresses to a new file. Each time you process a new batch, append today's date to the end of the filename. A glance at the file list shows this is the new subscriber list for February 24, 1999.

Task 7.
Save the new subscribers to your Master List.

Select the List Management from the Actions Menu

Figure 6 - List Management Dialog Box

The dialog box for List Management presents you with the option to enter the name and path of your master file (you can use the browse tool to find it). Remember you named your file in a directory named "master" and your file is called "masterlist.txt".

Your action options are Add to master list or Remove from master list. Select the option to Add to master list.

After the save operation is complete, you will see the number of entries that were added or removed from the master list. As an added precaution, you should always make a backup of your own before you update your master list.

Congratulations! You have just completed training on basic list management using Inbox Organizer from ColoradoSoft. During this tutorial you learned how to capture and manage email addresses subscribing to your E-Mail Newsletter. Can you see how you would follow these same instructions to track those email addresses requesting to be removed from your list - the unsubscribers? Follow the same steps as you did for new subscribers, but in Task 6 - click on Unsubscribe instead of Subscribe. Follow the same steps all the way to the end, but name your new file for unsubscribers "remove022499" instead of "new022499".

Now, we are going to move on to how to send your E-MailNewsletter using WorldMerge, another product from ColoradoSoft.

STEP 3.  SEND YOUR MESSAGES

Figure 8 - WorldMerge Project Wizard - Database Type

4. You are the prompted to select the field in your database that is the email address. Your file has only one field which is the email address.

You are finished with the setup! Now you are ready to save and name your project. Select the File Menu, and the Save option. Name and save your project.

Figure 9 - Time to Save Your Project

You are finished creating your project and now you are ready to insert your message.

5. After you have completed creating a new mailing project you will see the main WorldMerge window. Just copy and paste your pre-written welcome letter from your text editor into the message area. Save your project again before sending.

6. Now you are ready to send your message. Your message is the same to all recipients so you will use the Send Broadcast Message method from the Messages Menu.

Congratulations! You have just completed sending your first Welcome Letter batch to your new subscribers.

Sending the E-Zine or Newsletter

To send your Email Newsletter or E-Zine,

1. Open World Merge. Select New from the File Menu. The Project wizard appears and prompts you with a few questions.

2. You are first presented with an option to select a message file. Select New Message.

3. The next step is to select the database type and file that contains you contact database. You will select text and use the file masterlist.txt in the <master>
directory.

4. You are the promptd to select the field in your database that is the email address. Your file has only field which is the email address.

5. After you have completed creating a new mailing project you will see the main WorldMerge window. Just copy and paste your newletter from your text editor into the message area. Save your project again before sending.

6. Now you are ready to send your message. Your message is the same to all recipients so you will use the Send Broadcast Message method.  You send Broadcast because this option sends the same message to all recipients with out personalization. This is the method to use for sending newsletters - you can send approximately 8000 messages per hour in broadcast mode (tested using a 32K modem).

7. Check the status of your messages.
While your newsletter is being mailed, WorldMerge updates the send status of messages as they are sent. A green check mark means that the server has sent the message and a red x means that the server was unable to send the message due to an error. If, for some reason, you stop your broadcast, a red dot will appear by the record that the mailing stopped at.

WorldMerge provides log reports for you to review to determine what, if any, errors occurred and which messages might need to be sent again.

That's It!