INDUSTRYmailout
What is INDUSTRYmailout?
In response to the new Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) introduced in the spring of 2014, we have researched and decided upon a mass-emailing service that will aid us in complying with this new
legislation.
INDUSTRYmailout.com is a web-based mass emailing solution. It provides functionality to create and distribute email or newsletters to as many recipients as you want.
The emails can be simple and text based, or graphic rich. They will look great whether being viewed on a computer or mobile device.
It’s very easy to import your existing distribution lists, as well as make additions or modifications to them after the fact. INDUSTRYmailout will even handle deletion of duplicates during the import process. After an email or newsletter is sent, it will track who’s opened, forwarded and/or shared your email. It also includes automatic bounce, spam and unsubscribe management. The last point being very
important because of the recent introduction of CASL.
The fee for this service will range depending on how many people will need to be emailed.
What is the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL)?
CASL prohibits the sending of commercial electronic messages without the consent of the recipient. There are exemptions and exceptions to this legislation and there still remains a high level of confusion and complexity with this legislation as it applies to universities.
Refer to the flowchart here : https://trentu.ca/it/casl/caslFlowchart.pdf
The penalty for non-compliance with CASL is a fine of up to $10 million for an organization for each violation, and $1 million for an individual for each violation. Officers, directors, agents (faculty and staff) can be held personally liable for their organization’s failure to comply with CASL.
There are more CASL resources posted in the appendix, as well please direct any CASL questions as follows :
For questions related to whether your message can be considered a core activity, a commercial electronic message, or is exempt or for further guidance on consent and necessary message features, please contact Deb deBruijn at: [email protected]
Get started using INDUSTRYmailout?
Create an account :
1. Visit industrymailout.com
2. Click the green ‘Start now’ button on the homepage:
3. Fill out the information that is requested of you. (note, you can always call them for help. You’ll talk directly with them, not a call-centre. They’re very friendly and helpful!
1-877-260-6005)
4. In the next step, you may want to change the ‘From Name’ and ‘From Address’ to look like it’s
coming from a departmental email account instead of your own personal account. Click
Confirm.
5. After confirming, you will receive an email asking you to click a link to confirm your identity once more.
You can now Sign In to the industrymailout.com website using the credentials you configured above. After signing in, you’ll need to create your email that you’ll be sending out, and import your contacts that are to be the recipients of the email.
Creating a new email/mailout :
Once logged into industrymailout.com, under the ‘My Mailouts’ tabs, in the ‘Create a New Mailout’ section, select either the ‘Flexible’ option, if you plan on having graphics or special formatting, or the ‘Regular Email’ option if you will just simply be sending text.
In this document I’ll use the ‘Flexible’ option since it will encompass the ‘regular email’ option as well.
After clicking ‘Flexible’ you will be presented with a new page.
Here you’ll need to edit the ‘Subject’ of the Mailout. Click the ‘Change subject line’ button.
Next you need to ‘Create new Article’ which is actually creating the email you are to send.
Note: you may include many ‘articles’ per email if you’d like, they’ll all be displayed in the same email separated by their title, newsletter style.
Click the ‘Add’ button to get started creating your email.
You’ll then title the article (not the email, remember we did that in the ‘subject line’ above) and create your email in the ‘Email Content’ box. Since we’re in ‘Flexible’ mode, you’ll see you can insert images and change formatting like you would in Microsoft Word.
If you want to make use of a ‘landing page’, you can do so in the next window down. The use of this landing page is to provide more information than the initial email. This way you can keep the email short and concise, and make a ‘Click here for more info’ link that will link to the landing page content. If you fill out the landing page section, skip the ‘link to web page’ field, and fill out the ‘click here link label’ field with whatever you want the landing page link to say. (eg Click here for more info)
If you like, instead of a landing page, you can enter a link to a webpage that will then be displayed at the bottom of the email in the ‘Link to Web Page’ field.
When you’re done creating the email, click OK.
You can now click the ‘Preview HTML’ button to see how the email will look once it’s sent out.
Once you’re done in this section, click OK to save the email.
Importing recipient lists :
To add recipients, click the ‘Subscribers’ tab along the top.
Here you can view current subscribers, add subscribers one by one, or import a list you’ve previously prepared in Excel as an .xls or .csv file.
This can be as simple as an excel file with First Name, Last Name, and Email Columns, or you can export existing contacts from Outlook into a .csv, and then import that directly into Industry Mailout.
The most common way will probably be importing from Outlook, so I will cover that below.
If you have already created your list in Excel or are comfortable doing so, feel free to skip this next step of exporting from Outlook.
Exporting Contacts from Outlook
To make this process easier, you may want to create a new contact folder in Outlook and move or copy those that you want in Industry Mailout, into that folder. If you choose not to, you may end up with a .csv file that you’ll have to clean up first before importing to Industry Mailout.
To do this; in the People tab in Outlook, right click your main contacts folder. Mine looks like this :
You may now go through your normal contact folders, select and ‘right-click-drag’ them into your new folder you just made. Once you let go of the right-click it will ask you to move or copy. You’ll probably want to just ‘copy’ and leave the original as is. (note, you can move whole distribution lists at a time, or many individuals by shift-clicking many people at a time, then right-click-dragging them all at once to the new folder)
So now you have a folder with all of the people in it that you want to send your Industry Mailout newsletter to:
These can be made up of distribution list(s), separate contacts, or a mixture of both. Outlook is smart enough to only export one copy of each person’s email just in case you included them separately and within a distribution list. As mentioned prior, Industry Mailout will filter out duplicates too.
The next step is to export to a .csv file that you can then import into Industry Mailout. In Outlook, click ‘File’ at the top right, then ‘Open & Export’, then ‘Import/Export’.
Select, ‘Export to a file’ and click ‘Next’.
Select ‘Comma Separated Values’ (csv) and click ‘Next’.
Click ‘Browse..’ to choose where to save and what name to save as. Once you’ve done that, click ‘Next’, then click ‘Finish’.
Now if you’d like, you can preview the file you made by navigating to it and opening it up in Excel. It will look something like this:
Note you can’t see their emails, but they are there, scroll all the way over to the right and you’ll be able to confirm they are in column ‘BF’.
Importing recipient lists continued :
Back in Industry Mailout, we’re still sitting at the ‘Subscribers’ tab. Choose ‘Import – upload a list of subscribers’.
Click the ‘Choose File’ button.
Browse to the Excel file we just created and click ‘Open’. Now click ‘Continue to Step 2 >>’
(If you get an error that it can’t read the file, go open it on your own, and ‘save-as’ a .csv again, then upload again)
On the next page, you’ll be able to map cells to ‘First name’, ‘Last name’, ‘Title’, ‘Email’ etc.. You may choose to ignore certain fields (like ‘Title’) by clicking the drop down menu and selecting ‘—Ignore Column’.
Confirm that the fields match up, and click ‘Continue to Step 3 >>’
The next page will include details of your import. This step may find malformed emails or other issues and will give you a chance to edit your file before importing if need be.
When satisfied, click ‘Complete Import >>’ You have now imported your contacts!
All that’s left is to send yourself a proof of your email to make sure it looks as expected, work out a payment plan with Industry Mailout, then send your mailout on it’s way.
Final steps. Pricing, sending a proof, sending the email :
The next step is to send a proof of your Mailout to yourself to make sure it looks as expected. For security purposes, this can’t be done until you call and talk to Industry Mailout and have them confirm your identity.
They can then enable it on the spot over the phone.
You will also need to sort out a payment plan, so do this over the phone at the same time after discussing how many people you expect to email over what length of time.
Now would also be a good time to ask them any questions that have come up that I haven’t answered in this guide.
1-877-260-6005
They are a small team and answer the phones themselves, there is no call centre involved. You will talk directly with one of the folks below:
Now that you have the ability to send a proof, and you have credits on your account, we can continue to the final steps.
Send a proof to yourself
Back at the main ‘My Mailouts’ tab, click the ‘Send a Proof’ button.
It should default to sending to your own email, you may wish to enter more people so feel free to edit as necessary. Use commas between addresses.
This will send you an exact copy of what will be sent out to your recipients.
Make note that the ‘From’ field is your previously configured departmental email and not your own personal address (unless you want it to be).
You will note that there will be subscribe and unsubscribe buttons automatically added to the email. This allows recipients to either unsubscribe from your list, or, if they forward it on to a friend, will allow others to subscribe themselves to your list themselves. This is the part that is crucial for maintaining
Send the email :
Back at the ‘My Mailouts’ tab, click the ‘Send Options’ button:
The next page gives you a chance to change the ‘From:’ field to an email other than your own personal one if you didn’t already have it setup as a departmental email address.
Select to send immediately, or at a later date/time.
If you’re having second thoughts about something, once again, feel free to call Industry Mailout support and chat quickly.
They routinely walk people through their first Mailout process and will be happy to help.
1-877-260-6005
When ready, click ‘Send now’ to send your email.
Further Industry Mailout support :
More support articles can be found on Industry Mailout’s website :
http://support.industrymailout.com/?utm_source=AboutPage&utm_medium=InternalLink&utm_cam paign=Website+Links
You can call or email them as well :
1-877-260-6005
Appendix
In addition to the information provided, we suggest that you access the following:
• Imagine Canada has prepared an Issue Alert that provides an update and clarifications on CASL, including two helpful FAQ documents.
http://www.imaginecanada.ca/who-we-are/whats-new/news/update-and-clarifications-about-canada%E2%80%99s-anti-spam-law
• The Canadian Chamber of Commerce web site contains useful CASL resources including FAQs, a guide entitled How to prepare for CASL, and a PowerPoint presentation explaining what organizations need to know about the law.
http://www.chamber.ca/resources/casl/
• The Government of Canada’s “Fight Spam” web site includes a number of resources such as a useful FAQ document and a February 2014 Industry Canada presentation that is intended to give a high level overview of what the Act applies to and what it requires, so that business and organizations may understand their new obligations.
http://fightspam.gc.ca/eic/site/030.nsf/eng/h_00098.html
• IT World Canada has published an answers to your CASL questions slide show that provides helpful information.
