[consulting] What do you use for your email newsletters?
Michael Thorne
thorne.michael at gmail.com
Tue Feb 5 04:35:22 UTC 2008
Roshan and Shal --
Thanks for the awesome pointers!
I'll have to spend some time playing around before I know which route I
take, but ePublish sounds great, and I'm sure nodequeue is going to become
one of my "essential" modules since it has many basic functions that will be
useful beyond the scope of creating these newsletters.
On Feb 4, 2008 7:04 PM, Shai Gluskin <shai at content2zero.com> wrote:
> Michael and All,
>
> Despite the name "SIMPLEnews" -- you can get a lot content control with it
> when you use it with the following modules:
>
> Views: http://drupal.org/project/views
> Insert View: http://drupal.org/project/insert_view
> Node Queue: http://drupal.org/project/nodequeue
>
> I had been frustrated that SimpleNews wasn't dynamic, that it was just a
> node that that you sent out and it took the theme and formatted html for
> email. Of course it does more than that with the subscriptions and editions
> etc. But once I discovered the insert_view module, everything changed for
> SimpleNews and it had the ability to then really be dynamic.
>
> But then with Views, sometimes I had trouble filtering for precisely the
> nodes I needed to be sent out in the e-newsletter. Node Queue comes to the
> rescue. And it plays nice with Views. You can set a views filter to select
> nodes based on the content of a node queue.
>
> As for getting advertising blocks into a sidebar, hmmm, is there such a
> thing as insert panel? I'm sure there is a way to do it. It would be really
> easy to have the ads be in nodes that were interspersed with the other
> content, Facebook stye.
>
> Best of luck. Good topic. I'd love to hear more about the RoR backend.
>
> Shai
> content2zero <http://content2zero.com>
>
>
>
> On 2/4/08, Roshan Shah <roshan.shah at bpocanada.com> wrote:
> >
> > Michael,
> >
> > Option 1)
> >
> > What you want can be done with ePublish -
> > http://www.drupal.org/project/epublish
> >
> > Here are two examples of its usage
> >
> > http://www.la2day.com/epublish/1/23
> > http://www.dmwmedia.com/epublish/1/269
> >
> > The mailings can be done via third party. We recommend MailerMailer or
> > ConstantContact.
> >
> > Option 2)
> > You can also use Drupal SimpleNews
> > http://www.drupal.org/project/simplenews for newsletter mailings.
> >
> > Option 3)
> > We have built our own Marketing Blast Application for our business use
> > integrating Drupal with Ruby on Rails. All mailing/tracking, etc is handled
> > in RoR.
> >
> > Roshan
> >
> > On 2/5/08, Michael Thorne <thorne.michael at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Interesting Conversation ...
> > >
> > > Tim,
> > >
> > > This sounds much like what I would like to set up for clients. I have
> > > been thinking about how I might do this but still have several points that
> > > I'm not sure how to address.
> > >
> > > Newsletter Features
> > >
> > > - Branding - handled by custom theme applied to the newsletter
> > > pages
> > > - Intro Message - An optional message at the top of the
> > > newsletter
> > > - Article Teasers - Teasers for each article featured in this
> > > newsletter.
> > > - In This Issue (TOC) - a simple list of the items featured in
> > > this newsletter
> > > - Ads/Promos - Display ads and promotions in the sidebar of the
> > > newsletter.
> > >
> > > Given this structure, I'd like for the process for sending out a
> > > newsletter to be something like:
> > >
> > > 1. Publish Articles to website - content should be published to
> > > the website so that it has a permanent home. The teasers in the newsletter
> > > will link to these articles.
> > > 2. Create Newsletter
> > > - write intro message
> > > - specify which articles to include in the newsletter
> > > - specify which ads to include in the sidebar
> > > 3. View the page in the browser. Ideally, I'd like to
> > > provide a text area from which they could copy the source code.
> > > 4. Paste the code into the email
> > >
> > > Do you have any tips on how to generate the HTML for the newsletters
> > > using Drupal? Specifically:
> > >
> > > - Are you using a CCK type to define the newsletter?
> > > - How do items get added to a newsletter issue?
> > > - How do you specify the order of the articles in the
> > > newsletter? Is it easy to change the order?
> > > - How do you generate compliant HTML (so that it works in email
> > > clients)? Obviously the theme takes care of some of it, but don't you have
> > > to modify the output of some of the teasers, or do you still make it work
> > > somehow with just a linked stylesheet (I haven't had success with that
> > > myself)?
> > >
> > > Thanks much for any tips.
> > >
> > > Michael Thorne
> > > MikeyLikesIt at drupal.org
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Feb 4, 2008 4:40 AM, Tim Deeson <timd at deeson.co.uk> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi Chris
> > > >
> > > > I'm of much the same opinion, there's more to running large scale
> > > > mass
> > > > email systems then just managing subscriptions and pumping emails
> > > > into
> > > > Sendmail.
> > > >
> > > > We've been using Drupal to manage and generate the HTML and the
> > > > issues
> > > > etc and then using MailChimp to do the actual emailing. We've
> > > > embedded
> > > > MailChimp subscribe and unsubscribe etc into the template.
> > > >
> > > > This has given us a CMS for non-techie staff to manage the
> > > > newsletters
> > > > without getting into all the complicated deliverability issues. I
> > > > don't see that we can address the deliverability issues at a price
> > > > that makes sense compared to MailChimp's (for example) rates.
> > > >
> > > > We also use their InBox Inspector (email program HTML proofer) and
> > > > statistics which could be replicated but at their prices why
> > > > re-invent
> > > > the wheel?
> > > >
> > > > An example of this is www.green-places.co.uk (demonstrates principle
> > > > although doesn't use MailChimp). This site was created specifically
> > > > to
> > > > house and manage an email newsletter.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks
> > > >
> > > > Tim
> > > > www.deeson.co.uk/emedia/
> > > >
> > > > > Hi guys,
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm new to this list so please forgive if this has been addressed
> > > > > before.
> > > > >
> > > > > I often get requests from clients for email newsletter facilities,
> > > > and
> > > > > i know Drupal has a module that handles this, but I've usually
> > > > chosen
> > > > > a third party solution like Mailbuild, or Mailchimp over it
> > > > though.
> > > > > I'm doing this because there seems to be way more to email
> > > > marketing
> > > > > than simply bolting a module onto a Drupal install, and I don't
> > > > have
> > > > > the resources to track white lists and spam filtering, and all the
> > > > > other niggly things about sending bulk emails.
> > > > >
> > > > > Well, those are the reasons the third party solutions give in
> > > > their
> > > > > sales pitch anyway!
> > > > >
> > > > > Has anyone here had good/bad experiences with providing
> > > > Drupal-related
> > > > > newsletter services to clients here they would be prepared to
> > > > share?
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks,
> > > > >
> > > > > Chris
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > consulting mailing list
> > > > consulting at drupal.org
> > > > http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > consulting mailing list
> > > consulting at drupal.org
> > > http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > --
> > Roshan Shah
> > Toll Free : 1-888-378-7259 x 521
> > Direct : 1-604-630-4292
> >
> >
> > ***************************************************************
> > This email may contain confidential information, and is intended only
> > for the named recipient and may be privileged. Distribution or copying of
> > this email by anyone other than the named recipient is prohibited. If you
> > are not the named recipient, please notify us immediately and permanently
> > destroy this email and all copies of it.
> > ***************************************************************
> > _______________________________________________
> > consulting mailing list
> > consulting at drupal.org
> > http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> consulting mailing list
> consulting at drupal.org
> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/consulting/attachments/20080204/2e1bad8a/attachment.htm
More information about the consulting
mailing list