How to insert default (AKA fallback) salutations in Engaging Networks

What’s a Fallback Salutation you might ask? Well imagine you’re wanting to personalize your next email with

Dear {user_data~First Name},

But what if you’re constituent doesn’t have a First Name in their supporter record? That would look embarrassing, and that’s where the default (AKA fallback( salutation can come to the rescue. Engaging Networks offers two ways to insert supporter record fields into your email blast, but only one will work correctly in this instance. If you haven’t yet created default salutations in Engaging Networks, check out our sibling post (How to create default (AKA fallback) salutations in Engaging Networks) that walks you through the process

When looking at the Body Field of your email blast, go to WYSIWYG editor and find the blue section.

From there you can select your pre-configured salutations. And will get something similar in format to this.

Dear {salutation~First Name or Friend},

Now your users without a First Name will get a message that falls back to using “Friend” rather being embarrassingly left blank.

A special thanks for Fernando, 4Site’s Front-End Developer for investigating this issue on behalf of Ocean Conservancy.