Collecting e-mail addresses for newsletter

[Phil Steinmeyer]

I'd like one of those little 'Enter your e-mail address here to get our newsletter' boxes on my website, but I'm not real familiar with either PHP or mySql. Any places where I can grab pre-assembled modules/instructions for this kind of thing? (bonus points if it plays well with Dreamweaver)

[digriz]

try www.ymlp.com . There is a free and professional version. The only differences i can tell, is that the professional doesn't have their advertising on your newsletters. The pro costs a little but i think it works out to about $1.50 - $2.00 a month.

Once you have signed up, you can access some code snippets to paste into your webpage....It's that simple. You can access your account with them online too. You have full access to your sign-up list and the management options are pretty good as well.


If you want to see how it works, go to my page(link at bottom) and sign up for the newsletter (you can unsubscribe afterwards if you want, the options are there). The email entry box and radio buttons are all created from their html code.

I use them and i believe retro64 uses them. I can happily recommend them, i've not had any problems at all.

[Red Marble Games]

I use YMLP too and it's pretty good service -- though not as cheap as digriz reports. Prices depend on how big your newsletter list is. But it's still a reasonable price to avoid getting your principal domain blocked by the spam police.

[digriz]

Yeah, sorry, red marble games is correct. I forgot about the amount of subscribers affecting how much the professional service costs.

If you check them out, the fine print details are on the site.

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Red Marble/Mark

When I try to subscribe at your site, in Firefox 1.04 on Win XP, and I press the subscribe button, I get this

>>

Method Not Allowed
The requested method POST is not allowed for the URL /index.html.

[SquareDanceSteve]

me to (firefox) so much for signing up for ymlp


Method Not Allowed
The requested method POST is not allowed for the URL /index.html.

Apache/1.3.33 Server at www.redmarblegames.com Port 80

[Jack Norton]

Hmm could you please try with my site too? I am using YMLP and wonder if is a bug of Firefox with YMLP... you can signup from my homepage :)

[Phil Steinmeyer]

Jack - it works fine for me on your site (using Firefox)

[Jack Norton]

Cool :) thanks for trying.
Note to RedMarble: I tried with IE 6 and have same error, I believe you have a wrong HTML code!

[Red Marble Games]

Zoinks -- thanks guys! I'm just using the HTML cut and pasted from YMLP, nothing funky -- sounds like I need to address the use of POST with my ISP. I appreciate your pointing it out.

Mark

[Luc Van den Borre]

In case you're still looking - I just installed PHPList PHPList on our website, and it's all kinds of spiffy. It's written in PHP and uses MySQL but setting it up was very easy. Most of my time was spent integrating it with the website, so the subscription pages appear with the same design as the rest of the site.
The admin features are great, and it's free.

[Sharpfish]

In case you're still looking - I just installed PHPList PHPList on our website, and it's all kinds of spiffy. It's written in PHP and uses MySQL but setting it up was very easy. Most of my time was spent integrating it with the website, so the subscription pages appear with the same design as the rest of the site.
The admin features are great, and it's free.

But this wont address the problem of being flagged for spamming (which I only had pointed out to me a few weeks ago in a similar thread) I too use a bit of php scripting at the moment but am looking at "proper" alternatives. If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing right as they say.. :)

[Luc Van den Borre]

But this wont address the problem of being flagged for spamming (which I only had pointed out to me a few weeks ago in a similar thread) I too use a bit of php scripting at the moment but am looking at "proper" alternatives. If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing right as they say.. :)

I am confused. Yes, I know from experience that some overzealous spam filters catch email that I send to customers and subscribers, and I use some simple tricks to avoid this (don't use ALL CAPS on a line, don't have several lines of white space etc.).
I wonder how you would 'do the job right'. The only way I can see that guarantees delivery of your email is by signing up with a company that has contracts with ISPs to always allow email from their domain. Last I looked at it that was just too expensive and the coverage wasn't all that great either.

[soniCron]

I wonder how you would 'do the job right'. The only way I can see that guarantees delivery of your email is by signing up with a company that has contracts with ISPs to always allow email from their domain. Last I looked at it that was just too expensive and the coverage wasn't all that great either.

Well, there's Zinester, Constant Contact, YMLP, eZine Director... none of which are very expensive.

[Luc Van den Borre]

Well, there's Zinester, Constant Contact, YMLP, eZine Director... none of which are very expensive.

No, we were talking about 'being flagged for spamming'. Constant Contact offers the Bonded Sender Program, but I don't think any of the others on your list do.

[Jamie W]

Well, after mucho 'iffing and butting', on the issue of which mailing list solution to plump for, there seems to be a winner ...

PHPLIST

... and in it's defence against the, being black-listed for spamming issue ...

1. You can throttle how many emails you spit out per hour.
2. You can throttle the minimum time, between spitting out emails.
3. You can throttle the minimum time, between sending emails to any one given ISP.

So for example, you can make it, only send a maximum of 1 email per 10 minutes to a .hotmail address (concurrently with all the other throttling). I think that, combined with nicely asking your recipients to flag your emails as 'not spam', may well be a winning combination (and good for skin-flints like myself).

[ManuelMarino]

I use YMLP too and it's pretty good service -- though not as cheap as digriz reports. Prices depend on how big your newsletter list is. But it's still a reasonable price to avoid getting your principal domain blocked by the spam police.

Exactly you need to provide the proof that the customer requested to be included in the list.

An email with "subscribe" in the subject is a clear proof. So you can manage yourself the list without paying external services. Just put a link with mailto and "subscribe" and you've done the job.

[Desktop Gaming]

Exactly you need to provide the proof that the customer requested to be included in the list.

An email with "subscribe" in the subject is a clear proof. So you can manage yourself the list without paying external services. Just put a link with mailto and "subscribe" and you've done the job.

Slightly ironic that you're saying that, when its only a few months since you were sending out unsolicited emails touting for business...

[ManuelMarino]

Slightly ironic that you're saying that, when its only a few months since you were sending out unsolicited emails touting for business...

Send me a copy of that email, it's probably a business proposal and not an unsolicited email.

I've never sent unsolicited emails.

(Please contact me through MSN - manuelmarino@manuelmarino.com, or Skype - manuelmarino)

[Sectarian]

a nice idea but my question is this. Will you sell those collected email addresses to turn an extra profit without the consent of the recipient?

[Desktop Gaming]

Send me a copy of that email, it's probably a business proposal and not an unsolicited email.

I've never sent unsolicited emails.

(Please contact me through MSN - manuelmarino@manuelmarino.com, or Skype - manuelmarino)

You were offering me cheap music. And yes, you have sent unsolicited e-mails and other people on here got it too. You can dress it up as a 'business proposal' if you wish, but since I never requested that you contact me or add me to a mailing list, it *is* unsolicited.

Can't send you a copy of it, as it went where the rest of the junkmail goes. On principle, I don't deal with people who try to attract business this way, regardless of how good they are.

[ManuelMarino]

You were offering me cheap music. And yes, you have sent unsolicited e-mails and other people on here got it too. You can dress it up as a 'business proposal' if you wish, but since I never requested that you contact me or add me to a mailing list, it *is* unsolicited.

Can't send you a copy of it, as it went where the rest of the junkmail goes. On principle, I don't deal with people who try to attract business this way, regardless of how good they are.

No problem, I don't deal with people so scorbutic or picky, which one you prefer. By the way, I still consider them business proposals.

Also, "cheap music" could be considered offensive, but if you mean "competitive priced music", then I won't consider myself offended. Check my 85 LinkedIn Recommendations to read real impartial reviews and comments about the quality of my productions.

If you want to discuss more, better to use personal emails, it's useless to continue here. If you don't want, then simply shut up. Thank you.

[Desktop Gaming]

No problem, I don't deal with people so scorbutic or picky, which one you prefer. By the way, I still consider them business proposals.

Well they aren't, they're spam.

Also, "cheap music" could be considered offensive, but if you mean "competitive priced music", then I won't consider myself offended.

Well, whichever one you prefer.

If you want to discuss more, better to use personal emails, it's useless to continue here.

Not really. You were the one in the wrong and annoying everybody. Guess that's why you're a bit rattled that somebody's brought the issue up.

If you don't want, then simply shut up. Thank you.

Who put you in charge? This is an open forum. If you hadn't start preaching about the rights and wrongs of sending e-mails when you don't even adhere to your own preachings, then I wouldn't have had cause to say anything.

[ManuelMarino]

This is an open forum. If you hadn't start preaching about the rights and wrongs of sending e-mails when you don't even adhere to your own preachings, then I wouldn't have had cause to say anything.

I didn't say anything about the "rights and wrongs", I was explaining how I setup my Arts Weblog newsletter. (Weblog that is, by the way, very very successful).

I've got a friend that owns a softwarehouse, and he receives about 3 or 4 musicians emails every week, together with other artists and programmers emails.

If this means spam, then it's time to delete all the mail boxes of all the companies of the world and go back to the stone age.

Now, the other issue, did you read the 85 LinkedIn Recommendations?

Or do you think that positive comments about my professionalism are all false and your negative is the only true? (only true against 85 false?)

[Desktop Gaming]

If this means spam, then it's time to delete all the mail boxes of all the companies of the world and go back to the stone age.

Since more than 90% of email traffic is spam, I agree.

I wouldn't delete my mailbox, though - just the majority of what lands in it.

[ZeHa]

Congratulations for successfully "collecting" my eMail address as well...

EDIT: (To ManuelMarino, not to the thread creator)