Send News Feature is Closed
Send News Feature Closing Soon
We've been facing some challenges due to stricter regulations imposed by email providers. These regulations are affecting the quality of email delivery and our ability to support it. As a result, we will be discontinuing the Send News feature in the very near future—potentially by the end of this week.
What this means for you:
If you are a Send News user, you will need to transition to other providers such as Mailchimp for sending bulk emails.
For those who have used the service in the last several months, we will be sending your contact list to the email address associated with your account.
Feel free to continue using Send News until it is completely phased out, but please be aware that you may encounter delivery issues that we are unable to troubleshoot or resolve.
Thank you for your understanding and ongoing support. We appreciate your partnership and are excited to assist you in optimizing your church communications.
Katie Barratt
CEO
Applies to: ChurchArt Pro Send News
Note: The Send News feature is not available as part of a ChurchArt Free-Trial period.
The Send News feature is an easy way to communicate with your entire congregation or select groups via their email addresses. Create and send email messages quickly and easily with this feature. In just a few simple steps you can create and deliver email information to your church community at no additional charge!
In this article:
Manage Unsubscribes to your Send News
Create a contact list
Begin by adding your email recipients to your contact list. To add contacts, go to the 'Edit Contact List' section then click 'Edit Contacts'.
Click the 'Add a Contact' button to add contacts one at a time. Recipients' email addresses can be imported from a CSV file or added manually. Click 'Import Contacts' to enter several names at one or to upload .CSV or Excel document of existing contacts.
There are no limits to the number of contacts you wish to add.
Use the Manage Your Contact Lists page to also ADD or EDIT Groups of contacts. To add groups, click on the Add button below the Groups section. Existing groups can be edited by clicking on the Edit button.
To assign recipients to Groups you have created, click on the email address of a recipient. In the 'Edit Contact' dialogue box, click the appropriate Group to assign the email address. Then click Save.
To remove a recipient from a Group, click the email address contact to update in 'Manage your Contact List', and remove the check mark by the Group to remove the contact from the Group. Click Save.
When you have completed adding or editing Contacts or Groups, click the Done Managing Contacts button.
To learn more and watch a video tutorial on how to manage your contact list, click here to view.
Create your email message
Now you're ready to create and send your first quick message. Click the Send a Quick Message button.
Begin to create your message by entering your subject line and message. And here's the best part ... it's FAST and EASY!
- Enter a title in the Subject field—this creates the title of your email message and will show in the existing message list once created.
- Write your message in the text box. (TIP: If you want single spacing after hitting Enter you can "Shift"-"Enter" at the same time to single space after a return.)
- Send a test email (if you wish) by creating and using a test group. Learn how to send a test email from Send News.
If you send a test message, consider adding "Test" or a similar word at the beginning of the email subject. This helps you differentiate between test messages and actual ones. When you're ready to send the real message, you can simply remove the word "Test" from the title.
Now that you've created your email, you're ready to click the Select Contacts and Publish button. This will take you through you have just a few quick checks to select your publishing options and then you're ready to send.
Not ready to send your message?
No problem! Your email will be saved under the Drafts tab. To edit or send the email, click on the subject of the email.
Once you have sent the email (to a test group or to your contacts), you can look under the Sent tab and make a copy of the message to edit and send again.
Review and send your message
Once your message is complete, click Select Contacts and Publish button from the 'Broadcast and Send News’ page.
Next, select the recipients of your email under Choose your contacts list. Click on All Contacts or Choose one or more groups. You can click on the magnifying glass icon to view the complete list of members in each list.
Now, confirm email details to ensure your Subject, From Name, Reply-to and Address are as you expect.
- Subject - This is the title of your email.
- From Name - This is the sender’s name that appears in email clients.
- Reply-to Email Address - This is where replies to your email will be sent.
- Your Address - To meet the requirements of anti-spam legislation, you must include a physical address as a part of your email content. Use the Update Address button to edit your address, and it will automatically be added to your email footer. You can change that address by clicking on the Update Address button.
- Schedule or Send - select a time and date to send your message--either immediately or at a specific time and date in the future.
- Once you have confirmed all the email details, click the 'Schedule and Send' button
Watch a short video on sending your news:
Managing Unsubscribes to your Send News
Your email recipients can choose to unsubscribe to your email list by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of each e-News email that you send.
By clicking the unsubscribe link on the email they receive, they are choosing to be removed from receiving future e-News emails from you. They may receive an additional email AFTER unsubscribing due to the timing of scheduled emails and the processing time for unsubscribing.
You will receive an email report of any undelivered emails and unsubscribe recipients within 48 hours of your sent email. After that time, those unsubscribed emails will be dropped from your contacts list and cannot be added back to your contacts again in order to meet compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act. Also, we will not continue to attempt to deliver emails to the email addresses that are marked as bounced. You can determine if you wish to remove those bounced email addresses from your list or leave them as is. These email addresses will show up in your unsubscribed list.
Using the Re-Subscribe Feature
If you have a recipient who has unsubscribed in error, they can request the Admin to re-subscribe them. To re-subscribe, a member, go to Send News and look for the "Manage your unsubscribed contacts" link under Edit Contacts. This will allow the Admin to send an email to the unsubscribed member with a link for them to resubscribe to your emails.
Just so you know, the member must click on the link and follow the steps for resubscribing to be removed from the unsubscribe list. They will drop from the unsubscribe list immediately after resubscribing.
Deleting email addresses from the Unsubscribe List
If you have a malformed or bounced email address that appears on the Unsubscribe List, you can remove it by deleting it from your Contacts List.
NOTE: If you do not see a "Manage your unsubscribed contacts" link under your Edit Contacts list, this means that no one is currently unsubscribed.
Click below to watch a quick video on sending your Quick Message: