Broadcast mail categories#
On the MainCross system, so called "newsletters" are classified into three categories of bulk (broadcast) mails:
- Digest mails - Periodic mail that is meant to showcase significant member posts from the community, eg popular and featured posts, events, forms, contests, etc
- Service mails - Occasional high priority or critical updates from the network operator to recipients to keep them informed of something important.
- Announcements mails - Occasional low priority update for general purpose information / campaigns / newsletters / product offer not linked to posts.
Digest Mails#
Weekly or Monthly Digest Mails (DMails) can be thought of as newsletters but are structured using existing posts rather than a free form newsletter. Read the product story here.
See some live examples here:
This template usually has the code post_digest_nn_sub_1.
Keep in mind
- DMails are NOT meant for general purpose messaging / updates / announcements, or freeform text, or marketing and repeated delivery to the audience.
- However: once a DMail has been built using the method outlined below, the same mail can have brief freeform messaging where desired.
- DMails are expected to be a regular roundup message that summarizes significant posts from the network. Its follows a structure and the only acceptable way to create a DMail is to insert media cards based on the latest greatest posts on the network.
- If the posts are referring to different ongoing activities, events, contests, giveaways etc, it is good practice to order the Digest Mail by posts which have immediacy / urgency / topicality - eg a form that will close soon, an event that is scheduled in the near future, an offer that will expire etc.
Digest Mail content must not be repeated. Nothing annoys an audience more than to receive the same content repeatedly. If people care about your brand, they will gracefully unsubscribe. If they don't, they will simply mark it as spam. Either way, you lose.
Service and Announcement mails#
These are not yet available for self service and is currently in the MainCross Labs, and used for our own sending purposes, aka dogfooding.
This is part of the roadmap feature "Newsletter tools", which is part of the Communication suite.
Note that Newsletter tools (when released) are a chargeable add-on for Starter plan, and free on Thriving and above plans.
Segmented sending#
This feature is not yet available for self service and is currently in the MainCross Labs, and used for our own sending purposes, aka dogfooding.
This is part of the roadmap feature "Newsletter tools", which is part of the Communication suite.
Note that Newsletter tools (when released) are a chargeable add-on for Starter plan, and free on Thriving and above plans.
Acquiring recipients organically#
Broadcast mail is delivered to 3 sets of recipients:
- Network members - users who have first signed up on this network are automatically marked as recipients for broadcast mail.
- Super-network members - users who have arrived from other networks are automatically marked as recipients for broadcast mail.
- Subscribers (ie non-members) - users who have not signed up, but have self-subscribed for broadcast mail.
The list of Members and Subscribers can be found in the Hero dashboard > Community dashboard.
Becoming a Subscriber#
Subscribers can opt in voluntarily at multiple touchpoints:
- Digest mail prompt in network feed
- Subscribe widget after form submission
- Contact page (subscribe checkbox)
- Featured page - Contact form
Psst: none of these are shown to Members (ie those who are signed in), since their contact details are already in the system and they are automatically marked as recipients.
Digest mail prompt in network feed
A subscribe box automatically shows up when scrolling through the Network feed to prompt unsigned-in users to subscribe.
Subscribe widget after form submission
After a form is submitted (IF it allows submission by unlogged in users), then a subscribe prompt is automatically shown after submission.
Contact page (subscribe checkbox)
See it live: https://www.maincross.net/contact
Featured page - Subscribe form
A Subscribe form Block can be inserted where desired on any Featured Page.
Featured page - Contact form
A Contact form Block can be inserted where desired on any Featured Page. Every Contact form has a subscribe checkbox at the bottom.
Acquiring recipients inorganically#
We prefer all email IDs to be acquired organically, and the system does not allow bulk email IDs acquired from unknown sources (cough cough, scraped, purchased) to be added under self-service.
A paid mechanism is available for importing a list of inorganic recipients, ie Subscribers. (It is not possible to create Members via this method.)
Bulk email IDs exported from another mass mailing system (Mailchimp, Brevo, Postmark etc) can be imported by contacting support. Operator has to provide proof that the list has been acquired organically on the other tool and these are not on the tool's block / suppression list.
Once imported into the MainCross system, the list is first cleaned up, and then sending to this list is enabled in small batches to test. Any complaint from a recipient may block all further sending to the imported list.
Bulk email IDs can also be imported as part of the Directory Service add-on.
List management#
Most countries have strict laws (privacy laws and anti-spam laws) around email delivery, and we follow these carefully.
- Adding to the master network list of recipients is covered above under the headings Acquiring recipients organically and Acquiring recipients inorganically
- Every recipient has a high quality unsubscribe experience that works at 2 levels:
- An immediate-gratification unsubscribe from X sub-category of broadcast mail in the footer the mail. This allows the recipient to selectively unsubscribe from just 1 category of broadcast mail.
- And a master switch to turn off the category altogether.
Each broadcast mail category has its own list-management, ie unsubscribe channel, allowing members to selectively unsub from each category of broadcast mail.
Mail delivery#
Broadcast mails are batched and low priority, and are sent from an email ID belonging to a subdomain of the Network Site to prevent affecting the sending credibility of the main domain.
All mails are delivered from the maincross.net domain or subdomain by default. Customers may choose to send Transactional and Broadcast emails from their own domain with Custom Sender Name & Email, instead of the default one.
Analytics#
All analytics are tracked - bounce, complaint, delivery, email open and link clicks.
Notify subscribers#
A slightly different feature allows authors to deliver individual Article Posts to their subscribers.
