Tutorial for Email Comms Platform

Simple and effective email communication across App Members and RHQ/Partner and other Unit mailing lists.

Unify your communications and improve the reach of your message.

Our communication platform allows you to send emails at scale, built upon industry leading infrastructure. We have created a simplified user interface for creating and managing emails.

You can email across App members AND any uploaded/integrated mailing list, one system for all.

The Email Comms Platform is available to specific admin users only, it is part of the Web App.

Segments and Senders

Segments, Mailing Lists or Individual Emails:

Use the drop down selector to choose between sending to Segments (more info below) or a list of emails that you manually enter.

Segments and Mailing Lists

The platform can store two sets of mailing lists, the first are all App Members, the second are uploaded/integrated lists. These could come from CRM systems or any other data source, you need permission to send to these people.

Segments are a way to "group" those larger lists into smaller sending groups. The segments can be built up using any criteria based on the data stored.  Examples are below:

Segment Name: North West & Scotland
Segment Definition: Member Region in (North West, Scotland, Yorkshire and the Humber)

Segment Name: Officers in Wales
Segment Definition: Member Region in (South Wales, North Wales) AND Member Officer = "yes"

Segments are set up on your behalf based on the data that you supply (e.g. "is Officer") - you will only see segments that you have permission to send to.

Segments are live this means that when you schedule your email to send, the entire database of members is checked against the segment definition and that is who receives the communication. This is extremely useful as you are not left needing to constantly update your lists with new members or when people move away etc.

Individual Emails

You can use the system to send to a list of email recipients by copying and pasting the emails, this is useful for impromptu bulk emails.

In the first box, paste in the emails. They can be a comma separated list, or spaces, or tabs - just paste them and press "Add to List". The second box will show you the email addresses that have been detected. You can then remove any errors, type in new ones ones or clear the whole list and start again.

These emails are not saved once the email has been sent.

Senders

Sending your emails from a verified "sender" is important, this ensures the best possible chance of your message getting to the intended recipient.

Sender verification and domain validation can be a complex process, we simplify this for you. In the admin interface you are shown a list of "senders", these senders are all verified and their reputation is monitored.

We use these "senders" to define the branding of your emails, simple.

Email Creation, Sending and Managing

Create New or Copy

Step 1

Settings and Options

You can create a new email, or copy a previous email.

Campaign Name: this is the internal name of the email, something to help you identify it in the future, e.g. "March 2023 Newsletter"

Email Type: this the type of communication, it's important to choose the correct one here. Members may have unsubscribed from particular types of comms, this ensures they don't get the wrong emails

Email Subject: this is the subject line of the email, make sure it is engaging and clear

Email Sender: who the email will come from, this also sets the branding of the email including taglines etc.

Segments: choose the segments you wish to email, you can email as many segments as you wish. No duplicates are created, so if a member is in multiple segments they will only get one email

Step 2

Templates and Content

Select your template from the drop down list, each template has different "sections". The sections are HTML (or text), Button or Image.

These building blocks allow you to create emails to suit any type of content. The HTML sections are built with a straightforward editor on the screen that lets you layout your content.

Important: do not add any "Hello" at the start, this is automatically added for you. The default is "Hello first_name,"

The info is "auto saved" as you type, on slower internet connections this can sometimes cause the cursor to move around, if this is the case, simply untick "Auto Save Enabled" in the top right. Don't forget to press Save at the end.

You can insert images, headings, bold, underline etc.

Adding Buttons

If you are looking for a clear "call to action" on the email, perhaps a link to a website or form you can use the button.

For Buttons, you can change both the Label of the button and the destination of the button. Make sure you provide the full link including the https://
Here's how a button looks in the emails:

Adding Attachments

You cannot attach files to bulk emails, instead you need to provide a link to the file that will be accessible to the recipient, to do this we provide an upload feature for files.

You can upload as more than one file.

1) Select File
2) Upload
3) Copy the displayed link, this is the link to the file.
4) Paste/use in your email as a link.

Adding Images

An important note on images in emails, if you embed the image then some email clients (Gmail) will block the image. To avoid this you should use the "linked image" option.

The "Source URL" is the link that you copied adding attachments (images) section above. 

The image will then display on the page as normal.

Step 3

Test your email

Testing your email is straightforward, simply click on the "Send me a Test Email" button. The button is only clickable once you have completed all the fields.

Your email will be the default option, you can change this to send to others.

Please check your email, this is now it will be received by your members.

Step 4

Schedule your email

Once you are happy with your email, you can schedule the send. Set the time and date you wish the email to be sent.

You can cancel a pending email up to about 30 mins before the scheduled send time.

You will be notified by Email just before your email is due to be sent (up to an hour before) giving you a reminder.

Email List

The Email List contains all your sent, pending and draft email.

From here you can edit draft emails, copy previous and cancel any pending emails.The counter shows the "expected" number of recipients, the actual number is calculated at the time of sending.

Import and Export Segments

For your "non App members" you can import any mailing list into the platform. This is an manual process, please attached the file (csv or excel) and submit the form along with any specific instructions. We will contact you if there are any queries or issues with your data.

If you have a CRM and wish to integrate this directly with the email platform , please contact us and we can do this for you. There may be a fee for this depending on the systems involved.

Exporting your data is also possible, simply choose the segment you wish to export. Wait until the "download" button appears and you will get a CSV of all the data. Please be aware the download links have an expiry, so if there is no file then request the export again, the expiry is about 24hrs from the first request.

Please ensure you have permission to email everyone you upload via the Import process.

Transforming the way Regiments and Military Units connect and support their entire family.

For new Regiments, Unit HQs or Associations looking to better support your members…