After you have finished defining functions, building out the website, and uploading photos and documents, and when you are ready to notify your members about the new website, let us know. We run a process in our office that does three things:
- Generates a temporary username and password for each member.
- Changes their membership status from Bulk Loaded to Active or Expired, based on the expiration_date you provided to us.
- Sends a welcome email to each member with an email address. This message, which can be customized for each club, includes the temporary username and password, allowing members to log into the new site to update their password and other profile information.
This welcome email (see Customizing System Emails) references your club’s “President” and “Membership Director,” so this information needs to be configured before it can be sent out. See Configuring Club Titles and Contacts and Titles: How Do They Work Together?
The welcome email is sent “from” the person designated as the club’s membership director. After it has been sent, you will receive an email letting you know we have sent it out. This email will include an attachment with names, addresses, usernames and temporary passwords for members that do not have a valid email address so you can get their information to them via a mail merge.
After the Welcome Email is Sent
Don’t forget that this is just the beginning. Websites are living and breathing entities; they need to be maintained and updated, adding new event reports and photos, uploading documents, keeping the committee lists and contact lists current, and especially refreshing the home page. When people see a stale website, they stop coming. But if they see a vibrant up-to-date site, they keep coming back and are more likely to join and become actively involved in the club’s activities. Active websites also have higher page ranks and more prominence in search engine result pages; prospective members and event attendees are more likely to find your club or association with an active website.