Emailing Advice For Large Tournament

[RickRobo]

Looking for advice on emailing participants for a large tournament (approx. 200 people). We want to (mass) email participants tournament information and the caddie book (PDF file 5-10MB in size). My concern is that our emails will go to participants' junk mail and I'm looking to avoid this. Registration for the tournament will be through the Disc Golf Scene website. Is it best to email via the Disc Golf Scene website or is there a better solution?

Thanks!

 

[ru4por]

Looking for advice on emailing participants for a large tournament (approx. 200 people). We want to (mass) email participants tournament information and the caddie book (PDF file 5-10MB in size). My concern is that our emails will go to participants' junk mail and I'm looking to avoid this. Registration for the tournament will be through the Disc Golf Scene website. Is it best to email via the Disc Golf Scene website or is there a better solution?

Thanks!

We regularly use group email functionality via Disc Golf Scene. It does not go to my junk mail. Though, it seems that the results email does??

Outside of rebuilding the email address database, I am not sure how else this would be reasonably accomplished.

We generally post the documents on the tournament page as well. Might want to encourage players to check their email and holler if there were issues in receiving them.

 

[SocraDeez]

"Use" DiscGolfScene: from the tournament manager view, click emails (subsection of registration). There's a few settings that can be toggled. Click on one of the green boxes that says "Email this list", and DiscGolfScene ports/formats the information to for your particular email service - the email addresses associated with any tournament staff will be in "To" and the email addresses associated with the registered players will be in "BCC". You are still sending the email with your email server/account. DiscGolfScene is more so providing you with the email addresses associated with accounts registered for your event in a nicely formatted manner.

Emails are still going to go to junk for some players, but that's mostly dependent on email settings on the recipient side. I wouldn't worry too much about folks missing it. The players who want/plan to read the communication will find it. A good chunk of players won't/don't plan to read it anyway.

Advice: I'd skip a large attachment in the player email. Sometimes file sizes can cause issues for recipients. We've moved to linking to information stored on some sort of file hosting/sharing site vs. people having to save it somewhere or dig through their email to find. Google Drive works well enough for us. Also recommend including a link to the file on the DiscGolfScene comments tab (plus "sticky" the comment so it stays at the top). Players are more likely to access or interact with information stored on DiscGolfScene. If your event is PDGA-sanctioned and the DiscGolfScene event page is linked with the PDGA's event page/ID, you can also host files directly on DiscGolfScene in the "Documents" section.

You can check out how we linked stuff in the comment section at an Ice Bowl event this year here: 36th Annual Indy Ice Bowl: No Wimps, No Whiners. And you can check out a player guide that was hosted on DiscGolfScene in the "Documents" section for our large PDGA-sanctioned event each year here: 34th Checkered Flag Open by Disc Crazy - PRO

 

[RickRobo]

Great information. Thanks for sharing!

 

[biscoe]

A good chunk of players won't/don't plan to read it anyway.

After a frustrating weekend of players not reading info that was included in multiple emails and posted in multiple places online I am putting an Easter Egg in the emails for all future events- likely some secret word that gets them entered in a raffle or something similar. One good thing about Covid was that for a few months players actually read the material you sent out.

 

[SocraDeez]

For sure is frustrating, especially when already answered questions chew up your limited event-day time. We've had to do things like gatekeep the PDGA Live scorecard password to a player meeting announcement to prevent players from skipping the MANDATORY player meeting. I've included things like jokes/absurd statements to see who mentions it during check-in, but secret raffle entry is an interesting incentive idea. Let us know how it goes, man. I don't know why any of us who volunteer at/run events keep coming back for additional helpings.