The welcome message is the email that new members receive upon joining your network. If you have member moderation turned on, you will be sending out the Accepted Message instead, which is the email that is sent to pending members when their membership is approved. Either way, these messages are often the first interaction members have with your Ning Network, so making them unique is a great idea!
To customize the Welcome Message or Accepted Message, click on the Member icon to get to your Member Management panel. From there, click on the “Message Templates” tab.
You will see a “Select a Message Type” drop-down menu, from which you can select either the “Welcome Message” or “Accepted Message.” In order to make any edits to message templates, select the “Customize this message” box.
Important Email Macros:
- {{memberName}} – Automatically inserts the Member’s name
- {{networkName}} – Automatically inserts your Network Name
- {{memberUrl}} – Automatically inserts the link to the Member’s profile page
Plain Text vs. HTML
You will have the option to edit the “Plaintext” or “HTML and Plaintext” version of these messages.
Plaintext is what it sounds like–plain text emails that include standard characters like letters, symbols, spaces, and numbers. Plain text is what you typically use when you send a standard email message that does not include any special formatting or hyperlinks. The great thing about plain text is that is supported across all kinds of browsers or devices, so you can be sure that the message won’t look distorted on phones, or on certain email clients.
HTML is powerful and exciting. This is because you can really jazz up your messages by adding additional formatting (like bold, italics, fun fonts and colors, backgrounds, widgets, etc). One thing to keep in mind is that HTML messages may not always render as you intended, or at all, across devices and platforms. For this reason, if you go the HTML route, we recommend you also create a Plaintext version, so that folks that can’t read your fancy HTML message can still get a warm welcome by switching to the Plaintext view.
Whether you choose HTML or HTML and Plaintext, you will be able to edit your Subject and message body by typing directly into the text boxes, if you are in “Visual Mode” of the text editor.
Alternatively, if you have HTML code you would like to use, please switch over the the “HTML Editor” before pasting in your code.
Once you are ready, you can click “Send Me a Preview,” “Reset to Default,” “Cancel,” or “Save.” You are all set with your new, custom email!