Send Group Email

Member groups can be used as a mailing list.

To create or modify your groups see Member Groups & Mailing Lists.

Sending an email to the group

Create your email in your normal email app and send to the group email address shown on the Member Groups & Mailing Lists page. Your email will automatically be forwarded to the members of that group using the Email and Email 2 fields on their member record. Members without an email address will be skipped.

Your email can include formatting, images and attachments.

We recommend sending your first group email to the 'Administrators' group so you can see how it works. If the email isn't forwarded to you (as a member of the admins group) check the Activity Log for the reason.

(for non-admins see Allowing non-admins to send group emails in Member Groups & Mailing Lists)

Personalise Email

Email sent using a group can contain member specific fields - similar to a mail merge.

This is achieved by inserting a placeholder into your email. For example, starting your email with Dear [first_name], will send Dear John, to the member John.

Some placeholders expand to a link that members can click - such as [rewew_url] for a link to the membership renewal page. These links will automatically enter the member's email into the Sign In page if they are not currently signed in.

Note that placeholders use square brackets - [ ] - to surround the name.

A full list of placeholders can be found on the Email Placeholders page.

Placeholders can only be used within the body of an email and not its subject.

Email failed to send

If the group email was sent to a valid group address there will be an entry in the Activity Log that records the reason for failure. An email can be rejected for one of the following reasons:

Unknown sender, the from address on the email did not match any member.
Not a permitted group sender, the sender is not in the permitted sender list defined on the target member group.
Sender blocked, the sender has been blocked from sending group email. (see below)

Group emails must be sent from an email address that matches the email field of a permitted sender for the group. By default all full administrators are permitted senders.

To allow other members to send group emails see Allowing non-admins to send group email in Member Groups & Mailing Lists.

If you are sending from a central organisation address to avoid revealing a personal email see Changing the from name and reply to address in Member Groups & Mailing Lists. Use the From Organisation, Reply to Fixed Email option to fix the reply address, then resend from your personal address.

Valid group addresses are shown on the Member Groups & Mailing Lists page.

Temporarily blocking a member from sending group email

Your email distribution lists may be targeted by spammers if a member's email account is compromised. To put a temporary stop to mails from that sender tick the Block sending group email field on the member's record.

When control of the email account has been regained the Block sending group email flag can be unticked.

Members sharing an address

If there are no placeholders within your email (i.e. all emails are the same) we will only send one email to each unique member address.

If an email has been personalised using placeholders a separate email will be sent to all member addresses.

Counting the number of emails sent

The number of emails sent for a group email is recorded in the Activity Log.

This number may not match the number of members in your group due to the following:

Group emails are sent to a member's primary and 'email2' address, if present.
Email is not sent to members with a blank email address.
Members that share an email address will only receive a single copy if the group email has no placeholders - such as [first_name]. (as the email content would be identical)