How do I import a mailing list?

What does importing a mailing list do?

A mailing list is a list of emails you've collected from other places of people who have explicitly opted in to receiving emails from you. This list SHOULD NOT include emails you've collected that was solely obtained via exchange of products/services, giveaways, or similar collection methods.

By importing these list(s) onto Locals, you will be able to decide whether or not to send email notifications to these people when you create a post (similar to users who are currently in your community). These people will be able to get updates via email from Locals without needing an account on Locals.

How do I upload a mailing list?

1. Log into your Locals community
2. Go to the Community Admin panel (located under your username menu)
3. Click on Member Look up > Mailing List Import
4. Click the Import Button

5. A pop up should show up, click Upload file and select your file with the email addresses

6. Select whether or not to include a promo code to your mailing list when they get notifications

• Promo codes are for 1 month of a free trial to either a monthly or annual plan (plan options may vary on communities, if that plan is not available in your community, selecting it will not send out promo codes. For example, if your community doesn't normally have an annual plan option, selecting Annual as the type will end up not sending promo codes to your mailing list at all so make sure you select the correct type for your community)
• Promo codes can be attached to your email notifications for 30 days from the date your imported the file (after 30 days, the code expires)
• Promo codes will be unique to the import list and can only be used by the emails on that list
• Once an email is sent with a promo, you cannot retract it, even if you delete that mailing list, this user can still sign up to your community with the promo code they received in one of the previous email notifications and claim it in the 30 days (though they will no longer get new emails)
• Only 1 promo code can be sent to a user via this mechanism (even if you delete the list and then import a list with the same email again, they will not receive a new promo code. If you would like to give a promo code to such users, you can create one manually and give it to the user on your own after they've signed up to Locals)

7. Agree to terms
8. Click Import Button

Import Table

This table will show you the different import lists you've imported onto Locals

• File name = name of the file you imported
• # of Emails = number of emails that were successfully imported into Locals (any invalid emails or duplicate emails will not be counted towards the count on the specific row)
• Import Date = time stamp of when the file was uploaded (time is based on EST)
• Imported By= the user who imported the list
• Action = you can download the specific list (note that the list will only include valid imports and non-duplicates, it is not the literal file you originally imported into Locals) or delete the list (deleted list will remove emails from the system and they will no longer receive any new notifications)

Mailing List Stats

his table will show you some stats from the imports you've made (stats can be delayed up to an hour)

• Total Unique Emails Imported = how many email address you've imported lifetime on this community (this includes emails from deleted files)
• Total Emails on Locals = how many emails are on your Locals community rights now (if you've deleted imports, they are not included here)
• Emails Opted Out = how people have actively opted out of your emails lifetime (this includes emails from deleted files)
• Total Emails Sent = how many email notifications have you sent out to people on your mailing list
• Member Conversions = of the people who were on your mailing list and have received at least 1 email notification as someone off your mailing list - how many of them converted into members by joining your community
• Supporter Conversions = of those people who converted to Members, how many of them became paid supporters

Exporting

If you would like to export your Locals list for future use somewhere else, you can export an aggregate list of all of your imports (along with the full opt out list in case you need to scrub those emails off of other lists outside of Locals)

. Click Export/Export Opt Outs

2. Wait for it to process (don't close this tab)
3. Once it finishes Processing, the button will change to Download
4. Click Download

How do I send out email notifications to people on my mailing list?

Mailing list people and users who actively joined your community are 2 separate things. Therefore, when you create a post, you must enable for which group you want notifications to be sent to under the post settings.

• Notify Joined Users will notify the users who are a part of your community already
• Notify mailing list will notify people on your mailing list who are not a part of your community yet

The emails that mailing list people get look largely the same as email notifications community members get but there is an added CTA at the bottom that will prompt them to sign up and join. If a promo code was added to an import list, this will also be included.

If a mailing list person decides to opt out of an email by clicking the Unsubscribe button in the email, they will be added to your Opt out list and will no longer receive any emails as a mailing list person (if they decide to become a member, they will receive email notifications as a member of which they can also choose to opt out of separately). There is no way to add an email back to your list once they have opted out, even if you delete their original import list and import again.

Converted Members

If you manage to convert someone from your mailing list into someone who joins your community, you will be able to find them under your Member Look up as well. You can filter these members by using the Attribute "Joined from Imported Mailing List".

Updated on: 03/03/2025