We are providing a recommendation regarding the use of the “Bulk Email” tool in NUcore.

The NUcore Team strongly recommends that this tool only be used to provide information that is specifically relevant to NUcore. Examples include equipment, service, and facility availability, information about new products available for purchase in NUcore, user training availability/scheduling, and other functions that are managed directly through NUcore. We recommend that you do not use this tool for uses such as: seminar and workshop announcements, contests, and general core facility news. Instead, we recommend that you set your desired user parameters, export the list of email addresses as a CSV, and use a separate bulk email for these more general announcements. We recommend this for two primary reasons:

1. The user base will begin to ignore communications beginning with [NUcore Facility Abbreviation] if they feel they are being “spammed” by the cores, reducing the effectiveness of system-specific communications
2. By using other tools, cores can craft a customized message that includes formatting changes and graphics that are not supported by the NUcore Bulk Email tool; this is especially useful for seminar/workshop/contest announcements

“Constant Contact” and “MailChimp” are both good alternatives used at Northwestern for crafting and sending bulk emails of a more general nature to your use base.