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BigSender Administrator Guide
Broadcasting Your Message
Once you have composed your message, performed any text conversion, "previewed" it and/or sent a "test" message and made any final modifications to your text, you are ready to send your message to your recipients.
You may send your message to your entire list (broadcasting) or, with the "target" or "exclude" toggle and a word or phrase typed in the "match" field, BigSender will send your message to fewer (narrowcasting or targeting) as described below.
Before any email is sent, whether you click the "send" or "test" button, BigSender will automatically perform text conversion (from plain-text to HTML-text) if you have checked the "html" checkbox and the Message Composer's HTML field is empty.
BigSender will always perform text conversion (HTML-text to plain-text) if the Message Composer's plain-text field is empty. That way, your recipients who have email software that cannot render HTML-text messages will still be able to read BigSender's exclusive Hybrid™ message.
From the BigSender Message Composer, you may optionally compose some "teaser" text and click the "archive" checkbox (to automatically publish your message in the Message Archive).
Broadcasting to your entire list
Click the "send" button to broadcast your message to every eligible recipient in your list. (Eligible recipients are those not flagged as unsubscribed, ban, bounced or fraud.)
Broadcasting to a Range of Recipient Numbers
With BigSender, you may optionally send to a "batch" or range of recipients by their record number. This can be helpful for breaking up your broadcast sessions into more manageable chunks or for resuming a previous broadcast session that was inadvertently aborted for some reason.
Type the record number that you would like to begin with in the "start with #" field and, if you choose, type the record number that you would like to end with in the "end with #" field.
Then click the "send" button to broadcast your message to every eligible recipient in your list within that range.
Left blank, your broadcast session will begin with the first record and continue through until the last record.
"Target" and "Exclude" Feature for Narrowcasting
You may type a string of characters (letters and/or numbers) in the Composer's "match" field and, with the "target" button clicked, only recipients with records containing that string (exact and partial matches – not case sensitive) will be sent your message. With the "exclude" button clicked, all recipients except those with records containing that string (exact and partial matches – not case sensitive) will be sent your message.
This feature is especially helpful when you have used BigSender's special "label" field (in the Configurator) or Custom Fields to group your subscribers within a large list.
For example, some of your subscriber's records may have a label field that contains "GRP-MEDIA" (when setting your label, it should be unique and unlikely to appear in their name or email address fields). When you type "GRP-MEDIA" or "grp-media" in the Composer's "match" field, only those recipients whom you have identified with that label will be sent your message.
BigSender's "target" function also performs "partial matching." For example, to send your message only to recipients using a particular online service such as AOL, type "@aol.com" in the "match" field and click the "send" button. Your message will be sent to all recipients with "@aol.com" anywhere in their record. In this example, to send to all your recipients except those using AOL, click the "exclude" toggle.
I've used the "target" function to send messages only to recipients at a particular client company by typing their email domain in the "match" field, as "thatcompany.com"
To further refine your narrowcast only to a field (rather than the whole record) that contains your criteria, type the field name, a colon (:) and your word or phrase.
For example, to send only to recipients with an email address field that contains aol.com, type:
email:aol.com
To send only to recipients with an email address field that contains aol.com AND Mike in the name field, type:
email:aol.com AND name:mike
Using Boolean OR and AND Matching Criteria
To instruct BigSender to match any of the words in your list (whether you have "exclude" or "target" toggled), separate each word with a space, the word OR and another space.
To instruct BigSender to match all of the words in your list (whether you have "exclude" or "target" toggled), separate each word with a space, the word AND and another space.
Interactive Reporting Screen
After you click the send button, BigSender's subsequent reporting page provides you with the information you need to ensure your message was sent as you instructed.
If you have a very small list or used the "match" field to target only a few recipients, the reporting screen will appear very quickly.
If you are broadcasting to many recipients, there will likely be some "hang time" or delay of up to a couple minutes before the interactive reporting page appears – do not click your browser's "stop" button or perform any other task or function with your browser as that may cause your broadcast to abort.
Tip: To use your web browser while broadcasting is in progress, you may spawn a new browser window (File>New Window) to proceed. Do not close the window containing the BigSender Composer or Broadcast report page.
Depending on your server and your internet connection, BigSender will report to your browser the progress of your broadcast immediately or within a couple of minutes.
A "kill broadcast" button (non-Windows servers only) will display at the top of your Broadcast Report page that, when clicked, will stop your broadcast session if it has not yet completed. The resulting page will notify you how many messages had already been sent before it was cancelled.
Progress is reported to your web browser in increments determined by your "pause frequency" Configurator setting. Set properly, BigSender will maintain an open connection between your desktop computer and the BigSender application and will provide you with feedback on the status of your broadcast session.
Upon completion of your broadcast, the total recipients are reported, a message indicating whether your message was archived, and a representation of your message is displayed in your web browser. If you checked the "report" checkbox before clicking the "send message" button, BigSender then sends your email Broadcast Report containing details of the session and a sample of your outgoing message.
Next time you login, BigSender also displays an administrator announcement above the subscriber form to notify you of your most recent Broadcast Session's status.
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