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Email List Starter Guide
E-Mail List Starter Guide
Welcome to Beantree’s e-mail list service!
Throughout this document, where <address>, <listname> or
<domain> are referenced, please substitute with the information
for your e-mail list. Several sections of this document are directly
targeted to the list moderator.
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What
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Used in this
document as
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Example
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Moderator e-mail address
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<address>
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mylist-owner@mydomain.com
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List name
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<listname>
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mylist
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Domain
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<domain>
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mydomain.com
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Your Beantree e-mail list setup has been completed. Prior to adding
any e-mail list addresses, however, we would like you to get
comfortable with how it works by experimenting with one or more e-mail
addresses that you have access to. If you do not have another e-mail
address, you can create one at no charge through Excite, Yahoo, or many
other online services. These services allow you to send and receive
e-mail through your browser, so it is very easy to get familiar with
how your list works.
Please note the moderator e-mail address above. This is the address
that was provided to us prior to the list setup, and is the e-mail
address that needs to be used to distribute the list.
Generally, there are
four things that you need to do with your e-mail list:
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Add addresses to
your list
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Remove addresses
from your list
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See who is on your
list
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Send a message to
your list
Adding Address To Your List
There are four ways to
add e-mail addresses to your list:
Load an initial list of addresses from an Excel spreadsheet or CVS file
You can provide
Beantree staff with an Excel spreadsheet or CVS file and we will load
it for $.05 per address. Using this method, the subscription
confirmation e-mail is bypassed. So, all of the addresses added using
this method will automatically be added to the list and will not need
to reply to the subscription confirmation e-mail. A started list such
as this can be provided to Beantree as an e-mail attachment to support@beantree.com.
Manually add addresses through the Beantree Client Cockpit
You can manually add an e-mail address to your list by using the
administrative functions in the Beantree Client Cockpit ( https://secure.beantree.net/client/cockpit/).
Log into the Client Cockpit by entering your username and password in
the appropriate fields. Once logged in, click on ‘Email Lists’ in the
upper left navigation bar.
Under ‘Subscriber Actions’ Click on ‘Add.’
Enter the e-mail address, and click on ‘Save’. Using the forms
provided in the Client Cockpit there are no confirmation messages sent
to the e-mail address being added.
Manually add addresses using your e-mail program
You can also add an
e-mail address using your regular e-mail client, such as Outlook or
Outlook Express. You will need to send a message to
<listname>-request@<domain>. The subject line should have
‘subscribe <new address>’, where <new address> is the
e-mail address you want to add to the list. You, as the moderator,
will receive an e-mail with a subject line of ‘CONFIRM subscribe to
<listname>. You simply need to reply to the e-mail without
making any changes. When the system receives your confirmation, it
will automatically send the new recipient an e-mail confirmation that
they have joined the list.
Add an e-mail address from your Web site
Many Web sites will
allow visitors to add themselves (opt in) to an e-mail list right from
the site. This is generally done by allowing the visitor to enter
their e-mail address into a form and clicking on a button. The process
the Beantree uses to do this simply collects the e-mail address and
uses the e-mail subscription process to add the address. Please
reference Appendix 1 – Creating An E-Mail Form for additional
information and an example form. If you follow the example provided in
Appendix 1, the subscription confirmation message will go to the person
subscribing. Once they have replied to this conformation message, the
subscription process is complete and they will receive a confirmation
e-mail indicating that they have successfully subscribed to the
list.
Removing Addresses From Your List
There are three ways
to remove e-mail addresses to your list:
Manually remove addresses through the Beantree Client Cockpit
You can manually remove an e-mail address to your list by using the
administrative functions in the Beantree Client Cockpit ( https://secure.beantree.net/client/cockpit/).
Log into the Client Cockpit by entering your username and password in
the appropriate fields. Once logged in, click on ‘Email Lists’ in the
upper left navigation bar. Under ‘Subscriber Actions’ Click on
‘Remove’, enter the e-mail address, and click on ‘Save’. Using the
forms provided in the Client Cockpit there are no confirmation messages
sent to the e-mail address being removed.
Manually remove addresses using your e-mail program
You can also remove an e-mail address using your regular e-mail client,
such as Outlook or Outlook Express. You will need to send a message to
<listname>-request@<domain>. The subject line should have
‘remove <address to delete>’, where <address to delete> is
the e-mail address you want to remove from the list. You, as the
moderator, will receive an e-mail with a subject line of ‘CONFIRM
unsubscribe to <listname>. You simply need to reply to the
e-mail without making any changes. When the system receives your
confirmation, the unsubscribe process is complete and the e-mail owner
will receive an unsubscription confirmation from the e-mail list.
Each subscriber has the ability to remove themselves from the list
Each message that gets
sent from your list contains information on how they can unsubscribe
from the list. Note that an exception to this is if you send an HTML
e-mail message. If you send an HTML message to your list, you will
need to supply your own unsubscribe text and link. The suggested text
for this is: To unsubscribe to this list,
please send a blank e-mail to
<listname>-unsubscribe@beantree.com. Thank
you. The
e-mail address should be enclosed in a ‘mailto:’ link tag.
Viewing Your List
You can view all of
the e-mail address from your list by using the administrative functions
in the Beantree Client Cockpit (https://secure.beantree.net/client/cockpit/).
Log into the Client Cockpit by entering your username and password in
the appropriate fields in the lower right corner of beantree.com. Once
logged in, click on ‘Email Lists’ in the upper left navigation bar.
Click on ‘View’. Your complete list of addresses will be displayed.
The important pieces of information are the address, and date added. A
couple things to note regarding this list:
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You may see the same
e-mail addresses multiple times. The list manager maintains a
history of subscriptions. So, if someone uses an e-mail address to
subscribe, unsubscribes, then subscribes again, they will get listed
twice, with dates reflective of each subscription.
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If you want to save
your list, the best way to do this is to select the entire table with
your mouse, copy the selection to your clipboard, and past it into
Excel or another spreadsheet. You will then be able to extract and
work with the list of e-mail addresses.
Sending A Message To Your List
Only you, the
moderator, can approve the sending of a message to your list. If you
or anyone else attempts to send a message to your list, you will
receive an approval e-mail with the subject line of ‘MODERATE for
<listname>’. You will need to reply to this message in order for
the message to actually be distributed to your list. Given this
process, you could have someone else compose the message and send it to
the list. You, as the moderator, will then receive the approval
message that requires your response.
Additional Considerations
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You can send both
text and HTML messages to the list. Please be aware of your target
audience when making this decision. HTML messages cannot be viewed
by everyone. Some people use e-mail clients that are not capable of
displaying HTML messages. Others have HTML viewing turned off for
security purposes. Additionally, HTML messages can take longer to
download and view than plain text. If none of these issues are
factors, a well done HTML message may be an attractive alternative.
We urge you to do your due diligence with regards to HTML issues, as
it can make a substantial difference in the reception of your
e-mail.
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SPAM
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Please be aware
that there are both ethical and legal considerations regarding
spam.
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A good legal
reference is http://www.spamlaws.com
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Beantree has no
tolerance for spam. That being said, here are some points as to
how this affects you.
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Each e-mail
address that you collect has to have given explicit
permission to subscribe to the list.
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Every e-mail
that is sent to the list requires information regarding a
valid unsubscribe function.
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It is very
easy for e-mail recipients to report unsolicited e-mail as
spam to their Internet Service Provider. If that is done,
all e-mail from your domain could be placed on a blacklist.
Since many spam filters check blacklists, all e-mail coming
from your domain would be considered spam, and most likely
will not get read by your customers.
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We DO NOT
allow our customers to populate e-mail lists from purchased
lists.
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Beantree
reserves the right to terminate service and/or assess service
penalties for spam related problems.
Additional information
can be found in the Support section of beantree.com.
If you have any
questions, or have more specific needs other than what is provided on
the Beantree Website, please e-mail support@beantree.com.
Appendix 1 – Creating An E-Mail
Form
This section describes
how to add the appropriate html code to your site to allow viewers to
subscribe to your e-mail list. Beantree uses cgiemail as our form
mailer. There are two parts (with multiple options for each) to
setting up an e-mail form:
1) The html page that contains the
e-mail form
2) A template that will be used to
provide a format for the e-mail message.
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The html page that
contains the form to be submitted needs the following
information:
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The appropriate
form action parameter. The action parameter will be something
like “/cgi-bin/cgiemail/contact.email”. The “/cgi-bin/cgiemail/”
portion will always be the same. The “contact.email” is the name
of the text template file that will be used to provide the
formatting, which you need to create. Prepended to this name
need to be any sub-directories in which the template file
resides, offset from the document root directory. For example,
if the contact.email template file is in the /contactus/forms/
sub-directory, the whole action parameter will be
“/cgi-bin/cgiemail/contactus/forms/contact.email”.
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A hidden form
field which contains the URL of the page to send people to after
their form has successfully been submitted. For example,
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="success"
VALUE="http://www.beantree.com/thankyou.html">
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The template page
needs to provide the to and from e-mail addresses, subject line and
body of the message.
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The following is
an example of a subscription to an e-mail list. The text within
the brackets is a variable which is named the same as a variable
from the form that is being submitted. In this case, the e-mail
address is being used as the from address and also entered as
part of the subject line in a subscription to an announcement
list.
To:
announce-request@beantree.com
From: [Email]
Subject: subscribe
[Email]
The body of the message can be empty for an e-mail subscription
request.
There are many more
options available with our e-mail form handler, cgiemail. Additional
reference information and examples can be found at
http://web.mit.edu/wwwdev/cgiemail/.
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