InstaPage has always contained a very valuable communication feature: E-Mail Blasts - to allow Site Administrators to e-mail the registered user database with community updates and information. Over the years, the E-Mail Blast Module has been improved to make image insertion easier, to support attachments, upgrades to the toolbar, etc. An SMS Text Blast feature was also added some years back to support texting registered users' smartphones. Getting the most out of the current iteration of these tools does, however, require the Site Administrator follow certain protocols to ensure good looking, successful blasts HOA website.
E-MAIL BLAST TIPS:
Beware of Cut-And-Paste: When you cut and paste from another software or third party location or product, you inadvertently carry invisible code over to the E-Mail Blast Editor which can detrimentally affect the look and successful transmission of your blast. We discourage this practice, however if you must, after pasting the content into the window of the editor, please use the stripper tool (you will find this in the editor's toolbar designated by an icon of the italicized and underlined letter 'T' with a subscript 'x'. This will remove all hidden code, and you can then reformat the text content using the editor toolbar tools. This will help ensure clean content for your blast HOA online.
Inserting Images Into Your Blast: The Image insertion tool was recently upgraded to make it easier to upload and insert an image into your blast. Note the system will limit image size to 600 pixels in width, the current recommended specifications for e-mail width. Just note some end users may have their systems or smartphones set to not download images, so not everyone may see yours.
Details on Adding Attachments: We recommend attachments be in Adobe Acrobat PDF format, please keep the file sizes as small as possible, ideally under 10MB so the recipients can easily download them, even on cellular networks. Keep the name of the file free of spaces or characters as those may confuse the Perl code the system is coded in and detrimentally impact transmission.
Testing Before Sending: There is a very useful test feature in the E-Mail Blast screen that allows you to send a test e-mail of the planned blast to yourself so you can verify it formats as desired. We urge our Site Administrators to use this feature Homeowners Association Website.
Transmission Confirmation Screen: After you send your blast within a few seconds or minutes on larger user lists, you will see a confirmation screen listing all recipients from the database the e-mail is being transmitted to. Scan to look for red text, this is designed in the system to highlight a user that has improper information in the e-mail field of their user profile. Site Administrators will see a convenient 'edit' link oo the right of the offending entry so they can easily correct the issue on the user's profile. The first e-mail field in the profiles MUST have a properly formatted legitimate e-mail address. It will support multiple e-mail addresses so long as they are separated by a semi-colon and space.
SMS TEXT BLAST TIPS:
SMS Text Blast Tool: Only one piece of advice, keep your message short and sweet as SMS standards limit characters and are sent in simple unformatted ASCII text.
Should you have questions please either e-mail our support department (if a current client) at support@instapage.net, or our sales department (if you are considering InstaPage) at sales@instapage.net.
