Ezine Administration via Email

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Caution: Some Email programs are not compatible with our Email administration. To use Email administration you must be able to send plain text messages.

To reduce potential frustration, we recommend that you use Web Admin rather than Email Admin.

Email Administration Content

• Using Email Administration
• Ezine Name and Password
• Preparing to Broadcast
• Sending Your Broadcast
• Formatting Your Administrative Request
• Adding Subscribers
• Removing Subscribers
• Updating Subscriber Addresses
• Requesting Subscriber Information
• Managing Multiple Ezines

Using Email Administration

Ezine Administration via Email is sometimes useful for those with large numbers of subscribers or several newsletters.

Below, single newsletter instructions appear first, followed by instructions for multiple newsletters.

Caution: Email Instructions are for Ezine owners, not for subscribers. Do not send your subscribers to this page, nor give your list password to the public.

For the public, we recommend a simplified subscription block on customer web sites. See the subscriber setup page for a set up guides.

Ezine Name and Password

The name of your newsletter will appear in the "to address" when subscribers receive your newsletter, and it's the one without any spaces. Example: CoachVilleNews.

Your Ezine is assigned a password.The password for the Broadcast Management web site is the same as for Email administration. Example: 123xyzFTm

Preparing to Broadcast

If you can find your Ezine on any of the subject areas from the public subscription page, the List Server is ready to accept subscriptions to your newsletter. It is also ready to broadcast messages to all of your subscribers.

Change the way your newsletter appears on the public subscriber page from the Broadcast Management Web Site, on the Set Defaults page. You can control it's category, title, description, and so forth.

It's important that you set up your newsletter with customized responses before you begin using it. All customer setup is accomplished on the Broadcast Management Web Site, on the Set Defaults page.

 

Sending Your Broadcast

Comparison of Broadcasting: Email vs. Web Site

Web submittal, from the Broadcast Management web site, has several advantages over Email submittal. Some of those advantages are:

• No worries about virus transmittal
• Test send your broadcast to verify the content and format
• Schedule future broadcasts
• Maintain a stock layout and stock boiler plate
• Organize your past and future broadcasts

Because of these advantages, we recommend web submittal of your broadcasts.

However, some use Email submittal because their software makes it difficult to transfer their composition to the broadcast web site, or because they are sending attachments.

Broadcasting via Email

Caution: Sending a broadcast via the Email method, even once, exposes you to sending viruses to all your subscribers. Do not use Email submittal unless you habitually maintain completely up-to-date anti virus software on your computer.

WebValence assumes no responsibility for damages you may cause via virus transmittal!

Send mail for broadcast to your private newsletter address. (Secrecy is to prevent anyone else from broadcasting mail to your subscribers.) Your secret newsletter address is Password@lists.WebValence.com, where Password is the password you were given.

Please remember: any message you send to Password@lists.WebValence.com will be SENT to all of the people on your newsletter! Once sent, we cannot stop this distribution.

Administering Subscribers

Formatting Your Administrative Request

Please Note: The Email Administrator does not understand HTML. Send only plain text. Set your mail program to send only plain text or use a separate mail program that is set to operate only in plain text.

AOL 7 users cannot use Email Administration.

The Email Administration program requires a specific input format and it is relatively intolerant of deviations. Keep the following points in mind:

1. The Email Administrator is invoked from the requests@lists.webvalence.com address.
2. The Administrator determines which list you are working on from the password that you type in the subject line.
3. The Administrator can do several actions from a single Email message.
4. Requested actions should be typed on successive lines in the body of the Email message.
5. The Administrator will stop processing actions when it reaches either a blank line, or a line that it doesn't understand.

Adding New Subscribers

To add new subscribers, send an Email message as follows.

To: Requests@lists.webvalence.com
From: your_Email_address (example: bill@bigapple.com)
Subject: Password

Message Body:
subscribe john@domain.com John Doe

Notes:

• Email administration subscribe does sends a request-for-confirmation message to the subscriber.
• You may subscribe any number of people in one message. Repeat the "subscribe address name" line of text for each person you want to subscribe.
• If you don't know a person's real name, you may leave the name out.
• If a person is already on the newsletter with the same address that you are submitting, her/his name will not be added the second time.
• Place your password in the subject line, not the word "password."

Removing Existing Subscribers

To remove existing subscribers, send an Email as follows.

To: Requests@lists.WebValence.com
From: your_Email_address (example: bill@bigapple.com)
Subject: Password

Body Content:
unsubscribe Subscriber_Email_address (example: unsubscribe radish@compuserve.com)

Notes:

• You may unsubscribe any number of people in one message. Use the "unsubscribe address" line for each person you want to subscribe.
• Addresses not on the list can't be un subscribed.
• Email addresses are not case sensitive. Type them in all lower case to save time.
• Un subscribing uses fuzzy matching that allows unsubscribe john@bigcity.com to work, even if the subscribed address is john@west.bigcity.com or john@east.bigcity.com.
• Place your password in the subject line, not the word "password".

More on Removing Addresses

If a person is not on your newsletter, his name cannot be removed. The Email address your specify must match the address on the newsletter, or it will not be removed. Keep in mind that matching does not require an exact case match or an exact host match; see Remove notes above.

Web removal may not work with a malformed Email address, such as a missing suffix or a comma in the address. Try Email removal for malformed Email addresses.

Occasionally, you will encounter people who have forgotten the address that they originally subscribed. Without this information, you can't unsubscribe them and they can't unsubscribe themselves. The subscribers list function on the Broadcast Management web site lists all your subscribers. Sometimes it helps the browser "Find on Page" command to locate the person by name.

Updating Subscribe Addresses

Finding an Address

To discover if an address is among your subscribers, send:

To: Requests@lists.WebValence.com
From: your_Email_address (example: bill@bigapple.com)
Subject: Password

Body Content:
find Subscriber_Email_address (example: find radish@compuserve.com)

Notes:

• Email addresses are not case sensitive. Type them any way you wish.
• Finding uses fuzzy matching that allows find john@bigcity.com to work, even if the subscribe address is john@west.bigcity.com or john@east.bigcity.com.
• Find does not search by name, only by email address.
• Place your password in the subject line, not the word "password".

Updating an Address

To update a subscriber address:

To: Requests@lists.WebValence.com
From: your_Email_address (example: bill@bigcity.net)
Subject: Password

Body Content:
change Old_Address New_Address (example: change bill@bigcity.net bill@aol.com)

Notes:

• If the old address is not found, then the new address is not added.
• If the old address is found, it is replaced by the new address.
• A confirmation request is sent to the new subscriber address.
• The subscriber name is not changed.

Requesting Subscriber Information

Obtaining a Count of Subscribers

To obtain a count of subscribers to your newsletter, send Email as follows:

To: Requests@lists.WebValence.com
From: your_Email_address (example: bill@bigcity.net)
Subject: Password

Body Content:
count

There is no way for anyone who does not know your password to obtain a count of your subscribers.

The current subscriber count is also displayed on the Broadcast Management web site each time you login.

Obtaining a List of Subscribers

To retrieve a list of subscribers by Email, send:

To: Requests@lists.WebValence.com
From: your_Email_address (example: bill@bigcity.net)
Subject: Password

Body Content:
who

There is no way for anyone who does not know your password to obtain a list of your subscribers.

The subscribers area on the Broadcast Management web site lists all your subscribers.

Managing Multiple Ezines

Using Group-Enabled Actions

To use group actions, simply substitute your group password for the single newsletter password in your Email requests. Requested actions will be applied to all the newsletters in the group.

The following actions are group enabled:

1. Subscribe
2. Unsubscribe
3. Replace
4. Find
5. Count

Group passwords don't work with the "who" action.

Requesting Group Passwords

Those with more than one newsletter may be assigned a group password upon request of the support desk: support@webvalence.com. The group password is associated with all the newsletters belonging to an owner.

Note that many administrative actions can be more effectively performed with the group password. For example, a subscriber may ask, "Please update my address on your newsletter." With the group password, you can update this subscriber on all newsletters that you own, without knowing which, if any, newsletters she is subscribed.

 

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