How to send Bulk Email
Your Sumac Administrator must configure the Sumac office record to send bulk email.In this example, we'll send out an e-newsletter.
Open Contacts from the Console and find the contacts who want to receive your newsletter. This is usually recorded as a Communication Preference. Under the Advanced search menu, choose the Search Type: Communication Preference, then choose “Newsletter.” Click Search.
Now that we have the list of contacts to receive the email, click the Send Email button, Expand Email, and click Send Email.
Choose your office from the drop-down menu. This tells Sumac what office you are sending emails from; Sumac gets the default sender name and email address from the office record and fills them in for you.
Next, enter the subject line for the email.
You now have the option of either using a template, or quick composing the message body for the email. Most bulk email is done using an HTML template, since it gives you the flexibility of adding links, fonts, colors, pictures, and other formatting options, like the ability to insert information from the database about each recipient. A Quick Compose message is just simple text. It is often useful if you are sending a quick note to a group of insiders – perhaps your board or employees.
Check out this article to learn more about using Sumac's built-in email editor to create templates for newsletters, thank you letters and more!
If you are using a template, click Choose to select the template you want to use.
The Test button performs an instant mail merge on the template for testing purposes and shows you the result so you can ensure the template is merging properly.
If you need to add an attachment to your newsletter email, expand the Attachments area and add any necessary attachment files to this email.
Click Send, and Sumac asks you to specify whether you want to save a communication record for each email that is sent. Click Yes if you need to save a communication record.
When sending a newsletter, it is a good idea to take advantage of this feature to help you keep track of your outgoing communications.
Sumac will confirm how long it will take to send the newsletter, and will also ask you where you'd like to save the email status report. This report confirms which emails were sent successfully and gives a reason for any that were unsuccessful. Once you specify where to put this file, the emails are generated one at a time, and sent to the recipient contacts.
While emails are being sent, a progress window appears in the bottom right corner of your computer screen. It indicates how many emails are being sent, how many have been sent already, and how many have yet to be sent out.
Do not close the email sending window until Sumac has fully completed sending all the emails. Sumac will immediately stop sending email if you close this window.
Once Sumac has finished sending all the emails, it is a good idea to check the email status report to see if any emails were not sent successfully.
When sending a bulk email, you can specify how many emails go in a batch and set up delays between batches to help you conform to your SMTP server's guidelines. Some servers may specify that you should send no more than 300 emails per hour, or that emails should be sent at least 10 seconds apart. Using Sumac's Batch Scheduling settings helps to ensure that you do not get flagged as a spammer for sending too many emails too quickly.
Email Batch Settings are configured in the Office record under Utilities > Customize Database > Offices:
Before you start sending bulk email on a regular basis, speak to your Email Service Provider for guidelines on sending emails to large numbers of contacts so you can set up your Batch accordingly.