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Calling All Newsletter Gurus

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Slugger

Rank: Expert

Registered: Mar 11, 2003

Last visit: Oct 21, 2009

Posts: 1104
Posted: Oct 23, 2004 - 08:10 AM

Any advice I can get would be appreciated

I have an email list of around 50,000-plus subscribers. Without getting into details, these are all people with advanced degrees (graduate and post graduate).

As this group is of people who earn in excess of $250,000 (US) per year, there is considerable interest in leveraging it. I have been offered a lot of money to license it but I have refused (and will continue to do so) as I don't want to abuse the trust. Currently it is used just for follow-up...I have never used it for commercial purposes.

However, I have been advised that, if I don't maintain contact with these people, I may lose the legal right to use this list. For that and other concerns, I am considering a newsletter format with member benefits (discounts, special offers, etc.).

I would not want it to be too bulky or too commercial. I want more consultative selling, again, with substantial value for subsribers only. To keep it of high quality, I would "sell" exclusive rights to various related enterprises to fill it with content. Each would have to pass a very strict "smell test" and (again!) each would have to offer considerable value. The numbers would be limited to 5 or fewer content providers per newsletter.

I do not expect that getting the enterprises will be a problem as they've been coming to me for quite a while. I know the players and will be able to cherry pick and control the content to ensure high quality.

But I am clueless on what to do next. I am particularly interested in any input regarding the software for the newsletter (and archive), for tracking responses, etc. I was even thinking about doing this with PostNuke and modules for newsletter, archive, and tracking links, but am a little nervous because of the size.

I am also interested in format ideas, how much I should charge for each exclusive, etc., etc.

Again, your comments and ideas would be appreciated.

Slugger
vworld

Registered: Dec 31, 1969

Last visit: Oct 21, 2009

Posts: 786
Posted: Oct 23, 2004 - 08:57 AM

Slugger, all good questions and points. We have been using a nice newsletter tool called Octheth. The software is reasonably priced, handles large lists, easy to use/setup and they are stablizing their software support.

The issue with the type of newsletter/format, well I know you're market very well and I'd be happy to talk to you privately about some of the nuances of the market. If you're interested send me your phone number and a good time to reach you to chat. :)

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**unknown user**

Rank: Registered User

Registered: Mar 16, 2002

Last visit: Oct 23, 2004

Posts: 10
Posted: Oct 23, 2004 - 11:01 AM

The design of the newsletter needs to fit the audience. Visually compelling representation of data. Look at other top quality publications and ask yourself what you like about them and somehow try to duplicate that into the design of the newsletter.

What is the demographic of the newsletter? Aside from the "advanced degrees (graduate and post graduate)" part. If there were a better defined scope, I might like to contribute...
Slugger

Rank: Expert

Registered: Mar 11, 2003

Last visit: Oct 21, 2009

Posts: 1104
Posted: Feb 14, 2006 - 03:34 PM

I think it's time to bump this puppy. Anybody have anything to add?

Slugger
rgasch

Rank: Team Member

Registered: Jan 05, 2003

Last visit: May 28, 2010

Posts: 766
Posted: Feb 16, 2006 - 06:35 AM

I might: I've spent some time tuning our v4bAddressBook which basically involved looking at the SQL and defining appropriate indexes. I had generated 50000 addresses, 1000 companies and 5000 company branches.

At my first attempt at doing any SQL-based filtering took almost a minute. A day late the same opeation took about 3 seconds where most that time was spent building the dropdowns (for the 1000 companies and 5000 branches). This also indicates that with such large data sets some of the typical UI conventions used (start to) break down. The moral of this story: you *can* get very good performance even with big data sets provided you think about your SQL and your indexes. Technicallly this is not much data for a DBMS to handle ...

PN desperately needs a new newsletter module but there don't seem to be any people interested in writing such a beast ...

Greetings
R
http://openstar.postnuke.com
**unknown user**

Rank: Expert

Registered: Mar 16, 2002

Last visit: Apr 02, 2010

Posts: 1208
Posted: Feb 16, 2006 - 07:50 AM

InvalidResponse has one and it's great! But it's not as feature-intensive as pnTresMailer (although I'm glad it's not).
vworld

Registered: Dec 31, 1969

Last visit: Oct 21, 2009

Posts: 786
Posted: Feb 16, 2006 - 07:51 AM

Hi Slugger, the offer to talk to you privately reagarding this is still open. Here are some basics with respect to pricing -- email lists are usually priced (depending on the market) at about .10 to .15 cents per email. Compare this to direct mail names/addresses is very reasonable since there is no additional costs for mail etc.

However, it is critical when 'selling' your list that you have the ability to track openings, clicks, delivery etc. Most large companies have become accustomed to getting detailed stats on their purchases.

Dynamwerx mentions IR's newsletter module -- its good but doesn't have the bells/whistles -- although I'm sure they could be added.

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CliffT

Rank: Helper

Registered: Mar 30, 2003

Last visit: Oct 21, 2009

Posts: 683
Posted: Feb 17, 2006 - 07:58 AM

Well, Vanessa, I get the impression Slugger doesn't want to sell the list, just send an occasional newsletter in order to maintain ownership and control over the list. And he wants to send something the members would find valuable so they won't unsubscribe.

Of course, I'm interpreting for Slugger here and he's more than capable of doing that for himself. Sorry Slugger.
Slugger

Rank: Expert

Registered: Mar 11, 2003

Last visit: Oct 21, 2009

Posts: 1104
Posted: Feb 17, 2006 - 06:38 PM

Thanks Cliff,

I refuse to sell or license the list as my biggest fear is people stomping all over it and leaving me as the bad guy. Since writing the original piece, however, I have been allowing advertisers to hitch a ride as featured services in my newsletter. Same result, perhaps even better, but with the control staying where I want it.

Another thing has changed since that original message. I have gravitated toward segmenting my list so my "big" list really turns out to be more like many smaller lists aroung 5 to 7.5k, each. This works well for many reasons. I recommend anyone with a large lists do this. They say content is King but it's Don King if you can't make it connect with your subscribers.

What has me thinking about this again is that I'm building another Rotary club and district website and was looking for something to fill the gap once filled with the long since ancient PN module, PostMyMail.

The main thing is to be able to set up lists and then give people, sometimes many people, privs to manage and send to certain lists.

Another issue is that I'd like to see the, now required, automatic unsubscribe capability which doesn't just delete them but "blacklists" them so they can't accidently be reactivated.

I've been testing phplist and it's OK but I'm not yet sold on it. Anybody have any experience with mailgust?

Slugger
**unknown user**

Rank: Softmore

Registered: Mar 16, 2002

Last visit: Oct 21, 2009

Posts: 395
Posted: Feb 19, 2006 - 06:16 AM

i have a client that is interested in a newsletter/email list.

i installed PHPList for now.

they give details as far as who got the email etc, it keeps track of bounces, and best of all its completely open.

a module is definately needed for postnuke.
Simon

Rank: Legend

Registered: Dec 11, 2002

Last visit: Oct 21, 2009

Posts: 11674
Posted: Feb 19, 2006 - 06:24 AM

So who's going to develop one? ;)

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**unknown user**

Rank: Softmore

Registered: Mar 16, 2002

Last visit: Oct 21, 2009

Posts: 395
Posted: Feb 19, 2006 - 06:39 AM

HammerHead
So who's going to develop one? ;)

...
Slugger

Rank: Expert

Registered: Mar 11, 2003

Last visit: Oct 21, 2009

Posts: 1104
Posted: Feb 20, 2006 - 04:23 AM

cannibus
HammerHead
So who's going to develop one? ;)

...

...hmmm? :)
Topiatic

Rank: Expert

Registered: Nov 23, 2003

Last visit: Dec 13, 2009

Posts: 1487
Posted: Feb 20, 2006 - 08:36 AM

There are simply not enough hours in a day and fatique/sleep are still incurable /sigh. I actually have on my desktop, in a folder named HOLD a xaraya module that does all this that others have said works well.

If someone (else) was going to tackle this I recomend using that module to start off with. It's pretty much a standard pnmodule but uses the prefix xar rather than PN consistantly throughout. It also uses the file system setup which is kinda cool, but could easily be compressed to single files.

Just as a teaser for anyone considering this, the main user function is reached like this:

modules/newsgroups/xaruser/main.php which contains the following code:
Code
<?php

function newsgroups_user_main()
{
// Security Check
if(!xarSecurityCheck('ReadNewsGroups')) return;

$server = xarModGetVar('newsgroups', 'server');
$data['server'] = "news://$server";
xarTplSetPageTitle(xarVarPrepForDisplay($server));

$data['items'] = xarModAPIFunc('newsgroups','user','getgroups');
if (!isset($data['items'])) return;

// Return the template variables defined in this function
return $data;
}

?>

As you can see, the modifications are minimal in the code it's self and I beieve I read that this file structure is in fact pnAPI compliant... or close to it.

Anyone tempted to try something new yet??

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**unknown user**

Rank: Softmore

Registered: Mar 16, 2002

Last visit: Oct 21, 2009

Posts: 395
Posted: Feb 20, 2006 - 08:47 AM

according to a timeline i have. i must have 3 modules up and running in the next 3 months.

february - an events module and a music database
march - xuser
april - newsletter / tresmailer

these 3 modules are a nececity for me, and a few of my clients. we have temporary fixes now.

putting together a newseletter module, doesnt seem that hard. but what i want is those plugins like tresmailer does.

1. pull last x news since a date
2. recent topics
3. etc

if i can have this automated to send out once a week,

*sighs*

i wont say much more, but it is up there in my medium-term list of things to do