We posted a video tech tip to illustrate using BCC to send out emails to large distribution lists.
Check it out and let us know what you think!
As a childcare center administrator, you probably face an email tsunami – a deluge of important, must-respond emails from parents, teachers, and staff, not to mention spam offers of cheap medicines. You also send email to update families, fund-raise, and even update prospective parents on the waiting list.
Sometimes, as in Gmail, you have to click a button to make the BCC field appear
One simple, free way to cut-down on email clutter for everyone is to use the BCC field when sending out emails to large groups. BCC stands for “blind carbon copy” or sometimes also “blind courtesy copy”. It has a few important benefits:
- Privacy – People on the BCC list will not see the other people on the BCC list of addresses. This can keep you out of an awkward situation when, for example, your childcare center adds the new 2nd husband of a parent to the distribution list of your daily center update.
- No more reply all disasters – Replies by people on the BCC list will only be sent to the original sender and the people on the CC list. For example, say you send out an email outlining your revised food allergy policy. Then, one of the parents replies-to-all asking if “‘No nuts’ includes peanut butter? Afterall, peanuts are really legumes.” Next another parent, being oh so helpful says, “Of course, what are you some sort of nutcase?” etc. etc. With BCC that response will go only to you, and spare the other 650 people on your list of the “no duh!” emails.
- Prevent viruses and spam – Since you are limiting who gets your valuable family data (i.e., names and emails), you are preventing the spread of viruses and spam. For example, viruses will often spread themselves as email attachments through an infected computer’s email program. By hiding other addressees by using the BCC field, the virus will not know that those families are even out there.
- Get read and save paper – Some older email programs, will show the entire distribution list before you even get to the message. Using the BCC will shorten that list to one person, the person receiving it and no one else. To boot, a lot of people (you know who you are) will print out email. By using BCC, your receiver will not have two pages of addresses before they even get to your message.
To use the BCC effectively:
- Put your name or your generic contact email as the “To” addressee. This is necessary because some email programs will not let you send without at least one non-BCC address
- Activate the BCC field. For some programs like the latest versions of Microsoft Outlook, the BCC field is always available. Consult your help files or your local technology administrator for more spefics
It's good practice to use your address in the "To:" box and put all of the other members of the list in the "Bcc:" box
- Put your recipient’s addresses in the distribution list in the BCC field as you would normally in the “TO:”
Does your center need a new web site?
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A web site is your public face to the world. What does yours say? A web site can help increase enrollment and save time. It acts as a marketing tool for parents researching childcare options. It provides resources to parents so they don’t have to call you every time they need a form.
The problem is: you are busy! You don’t have time to think about creating a site. Hiring someone can be expensive. It is difficult even to get started on the process.
We will do it for you! BumbleBee is giving away a free web site to one childcare center. Think ‘Extreme Makeover, Web Edition’. It will look great, with a professional design. We will put in your custom content, and then you’ll have access to a simple management interface to create or update content.
All you have to do is stop by booth #1456 at the NAEYC Annual Conference in Orlando or sign up for our free email list, and you can win. There is no commitment or purchase required.
To enter:
1) Sign up using this form (or stop by booth #1456 at the NAEYC Annual Conference in Orlando) by November 11, 2011.
2) We will draw a winner on November 14.
3) We will contact the winner to discuss what kind of content you want, then build the site for you.
That’s it! Plus, you will be signed up to receive free emails on tech tips, news, and other topics useful for childcare managers. In fact, after giving away this web site, we will provide our mailing list members with a series of “how-to” articles that detail how to quickly build a great looking website yourself.
The usual yada-yada: Of course, there is no purchase necessary to enter. One entry per person. If you are not going to be at the conference, sign up for our email list by the 11th of November. We will not share your email with anyone else. No one. Not even if they ask nicely. We will create up to 10 pages of content, and give you simple tools to update that or build more.
