Broadcast By Email Add Column

Can you add other columns in the Broadcast by Email module beside
Name, Email, Status?
I want to add a column for $Amount. How would I go about doing that?

Yes, you can add other columns in Broadcast by Email. Please select Help > Help Topics from the program main menu. Then select topic: Send Personalized Emails. The content is included here:

Send personalized emails

Suppose you operate a video shop and would like to send out email reminders to your customers for their overdue rentals. You would like to include the specific rental item in your email. The following example, with name and video title personalized, shows what a message might look like:

Dear John, the following video “Lord of the Ring” is over due. Please return as soon as possible to avoid further fine.

Here are the steps for designing and sending out personalized emails:

1. Design a message template

2. Set default value for variables

3. Create an email list with required information by the message template

4. Check personalized messages before sending out

5. Send

Design a message template

Message template is a text or HTML file containing generic items called variables. Variables, denoted by ${variable name}, are items to be replaced by actual information in actual email message. For our example here, use Microsoft Notepad to type in the following:

Dear ${Name}, the following video “${Title}” is over due. Please return as soon as possible to avoid further fine.

Once finished, please save the content to a file, such as C:\My Document\testmail.txt.

Select Broadcast Messages… from the program main menu. In the Message Template dialog, click New.

The Email Message Template dialog should appear. Type in anything you like for template name, such as “overdue message”. Type in your email subject, for example, “Overdue video notice”. (It is also OK to use variables in the email subject.)

Click the Browse button. The File dialog should appear. Select the template file (C:\My Document\testmail.txt) you saved before. Click OK.

Back in Email Template dialog; make sure “plain text file” is selected. Click OK.

Set Default Value for Variables

It is possible that some of the variables might not have value for certain contact. In that case, you want to specify the default value for the variables.

Let’s suppose you might not always get a person’s name in your mailing list. Instead of saying “Dear …” you want to say “Dear customer …” for your personalized message.

To set default value for variables, in the Email Template dialog, select the message template, and then click Variables…. If you selected previously designed “overdue message”, you should see two variable listed, ${Name} and ${Title}. Click the “Default Value” cell for ${Name}, type in “customer”, click OK.

Create an email list

Once you have designed your message template, you can create an email list just suitable for that message. Select File New … from the program main menu. In the Choose Message Template dialog, select “overdue message”, click OK.

Now you should see a new column is added in the spreadsheet window. Fill in the information as much as possible. Save the document.

Please note you can copy-paste data from other programs or import a file to populate your spreadsheet.

Check Personalized Message

You can check your personalized message before sending it out. Select the row in the spreadsheet and then click the View Message button on the toolbar (or select Broadcast View Message from the program main menu).

For example, if you have a row in the spreadsheet as

John, john@somewhere.com, Lord of the Ring,

You should see the personalized message like the one you see in the beginning of the section.

You can also see the personalized message with variables replaced and highlighted. To do so, select any row in the spreadsheet, then click the View Message (Highlight) button on the toolbar.

Send emails

To send email, select Broadcast Send Now from the main menu. All steps are the same as sending out a generic email as described in the previous sections.