Introduction
If you're pre-assigning bibs to the athletes in your event using the Bib Tool, you can use CT Live's e-mail blast feature to let everyone know what number they'll have during the race. This guide will show you how to do this.
Please note that this method may not be an effective method for distributing bib numbers if groups of multiple athletes registered using the same E-mail address - e.g. Families. Check your data for duplicate e-mails addresses and consider including a note in the e-mail body prompting users to ensure everyone knows their bib number.
Set Up and Export Athlete Information
Once you've assigned bibs, you'll need to export each athlete's Name, E-mail, and Bib in a CSV file.
- Go to the Reports tab in your event and click on the Confirmed Entries report.
- Click Edit at the top right corner of the screen.
- In the window that appears, give the report a different title (e.g. "Confirmed Entries - Emails"), and make sure each of the Races in your event are selected.
- Now go through the report and deselect all but First Name, Email, and Bib.
- At the bottom of the edit window, check the Save As New, then click Save & Close.
- Now, click the CSV button to download the report.
Sometimes, the report may download in a slightly different format. To make sure uploading the contact/bib list goes smoothly, open the downloaded file in Excel and then save it as an MS-DOS CSV.
Import Contacts + Bibs
Now, on the E-mail tab, create a new campaign and fill in the appropriate information for the e-mail campaign. If you're not familiar with creating an e-mail campaign, click HERE for a full guide.
To import the list of e-mails, names, and bibs:
- Click the Create List button and select Import from the "Select Recipients from" dropdown. Enter a List Title, then click Select File and locate the contact list you downloaded previously.
- Click Continue. On the next page, make sure the Name, and Email values are mapped correctly. For the BIB field, map the value to the Coupon Code value.
- On the final step, confirm the information in the file, then click Complete & Save.
- Allow some time for the file to upload. When the process is complete, the page will refresh, and the list title will appear in the To field.
Composing a Message with Bibs
Now, compose your e-mail message and use the [%coupon_code%] placeholder to insert the Bibs into each participant's e-mail. See the example below for an example of how this might look. You can also personalize the e-mail with the [%first_name%] placeholder.
In order for the names and bibs to be inserted into the e-mails, the placeholders MUST follow the format shown in the image below - [%first_name%] and [%coupon_code%]
Once you've scheduled the e-mail, each recipient will get a personalized e-mail with their unique Bib number in place of the placeholder text.