Using FTDNA bulk mail for contacting project members

[billdickason]

Does anyone use bulk mail to contact project members? I had not used it previously and it is a complete disaster. I got about 52 replies to an important email that I put out to 96 members. So I started investigating, by sending individual emails. I had 8 email addresses that bounced. FTDNA does nothing to make you aware of these. Furthermore, you no longer have a means of calling them or US postal mailing because you can no longer see that information. I also have found that some servers block the bulk FTDNA emails. Many members get so much email from FTDNA that they simply ignore it. Of the individual emails that I sent there are still a dozen that I have not heard from. Depending on the server, I don't think that you will always get a bounce message. I am tempted to simply delete these members. What is the point if you cannot communicate with them? FTDNA needs to re-examine not providing phone and address info on members to the project administrator. From one email address I was able to figure out that it was via a law firm. Going to the law firm website, I determined the member had been died in July 2016.

[Jim Barrett]

FTDNA did tell us about bounced bulk messages, but so many admins complained about all of the messages they stopped doing it.

[The_Contemplator]

Does anyone use bulk mail to contact project members? I had not used it previously and it is a complete disaster. I got about 52 replies to an important email that I put out to 96 members.

Getting over half to reply back would be a win in my book. But yes, there are limits to the bulk mail function. Sometimes you may simply be better off emailing them yourself. Though if the group is too big, your email provider won't let you in case you are spamming.

Furthermore, you no longer have a means of calling them or US postal mailing because you can no longer see that information.

I suspect many project members were not even aware that their project admins had access to their phone number and mailing address. If they had, they may not have joined the project. In fact, I wasn't even aware admins had this until I myself became an admin. I agree it could be a useful way to get them to communicate back but can also worked against you if they didn't want others to have that information.

I am tempted to simply delete these members. What is the point if you cannot communicate with them?

They may reply some day. I've had members in my groups that never replied to a single email. Rather than email them often, I opted to just email them once in a long time. Like half a year or longer. Then out of the blue they did reply back. Having their data can still be useful even if they don't communicate back.

FTDNA needs to re-examine not providing phone and address info on members to the project administrator. From one email address I was able to figure out that it was via a law firm. Going to the law firm website, I determined the member had been died in July 2016.

I don't imagine FTDNA will undo this, specially with the GDPR. I've also found out about some of my members being deceased after doing similar searching. Once I had missed the chance to contact a member by a month. He had died a month before the email I had sent him.

[Nanaof3]

I sent a bulk email to 23 members of our small Surname project and have received zero replies. I don't believe the former administrators tried to contact them, at least I never received anything from them unless I initiated it. I am afraid that a number of our members are deceased or because their results were zippo on Y matches, they no longer find a reason to participate. Some have not visited the forum in over a year, a couple never did. How can you spark interest in a group like this?

[Jim Barrett]

Some have not visited the forum in over a year, a couple never did. How can you spark interest in a group like this?

I know you can tell if they visited their FTDNA kit website, but how do you tell if they ever visited this forum?

[dnaforsennett]

I've noticed that since all that GDPR stuff, and changing the way members granted admin permissions, I have quite a few project members who have defaulted to "limited" permissions and who haven't signed into their accounts since then. Some of these included people who had previously given me permission by email to upgrade their tests, and now, with "limited" permissions I am unable to do this. It was quite important that I got the email permission previously, because these are mostly older people who don't use the internet much if at all, and in some cases whose email address appears to have changed or not being used any more.