I can't seem to think this thru all the way, so I'm looking for some input from the community.
Our church currently uses a raw email list to send emails (ranging from daily announcements, which i find very annoying, to monthly newsletter). How can I incorporate these emails, subscribe them to newsletters, announcements, etc, without them being active users? Many of them will never access the website.
The most dirty solution is to import the emails, create users, subscribe them en masse.
A byproduct of this is people creating accounts and then having 2 accounts, one that I imported and one they created. I mean, let's face it, most people are stupid or don't pay attention. The other time I did a user import (40 users) I had them trying to create new accounts with diff email addresses and other tomfoolery.
Relevant modules I have: Simplenews, Messaging, Notifications, User Import.
Comments
If you don't need to
If you don't need to integrate with your web site; It's not a Drupal module but I have used phplist and it is extremely well-designed for this kind of stuff. Almost as good as Constant Contact.
http://www.phplist.com/
phplist
we recently started using phplist and are having problems with gmail puting our daily bible reading into spam folder.. any ideas?
david
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If you are not sending emails
If you are not sending emails made of one single image with no text, the problem is not phplist. You could start by looking at your mx records. You should also use the SMTP Authentication module to force those emails be delivered from an email account and not the localhost.
I second esbon's suggestion
Know that gmail has a number of processes (filters) that it uses to determine what is spam, and that there's no email list program that will send 100% emails without issues. http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-gmail-blocks-spam.html
Try CiviCRM
Another alternative would be to use CiviCRM which integrates with Drupal. There are functions within CiviCRM for synchronizing contacts in CiviCRM with users in Drupal, and can help minimize duplicates. CiviCRM Mail provides a way to send newsletters to people with contact records in CiviCRM without them having user accounts in Drupal, which could be exactly what you are looking for.
There are some modules written to integrate further between CiviCRM and Drupal, but my recent experience is that if you have the right version of CiviCRM that supports an add-on module, then you probably will be with that version for a while, as the community upgrades to newer CiviCRM versions is rather unpredictable.
That said, if the modules and versions meet your needs, it can be a good solution.
Thanks for quick response
@Kyle, will check that out.
@bdornbush, I have seen the term CiviCRM all over Drupal.org but have never looked at what it was. I am checking that out too, seems a lot of people use it. Someone even mentioned at our last meetup.
Thanks to you both!
Getting started with CiviCRM
Looks like they're in the middle of revising the organization of documentation. Take a look at http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Getting+Started
The Case studies (http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Case+Studies) might give you some ideas.
Before you start using it, I suggest skimming through the free book "Understanding CiviCRM" at http://en.flossmanuals.net/civicrm and then skim through the Administrators Guide, http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Administrator%27s+Guide, so you'll have a good idea of its capabilities and where to look if you need help.
I suspect you'll find lots ways CiviCRM can help your chuch besides newsletters.
Judy Hallman
One more thing...
I should have mentioned, look around in the forums, particularly Pre-installation Questions at http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/board,5.0.html
Questions are replied to quickly and the folks who respond are friendly and helpful. You'll also get some more ideas of what you can do with CiviCRM.
Judy Hallman
I'm on this same path
I am going down this path for my company site and trying to figure out the best approach. I have 1 piece of content, that when updated, will fire off emails to those subscribed. Some will be users on my site, some will just be people who have signed up for our mailing list. I'm looking at using notifications/messaging for those who are users, and am still up in the air for visitors that want to subscribe. I know PHPList will work on its own, but this week I'll be working through the possibility of integrating it into my Drupal site. If I come up with a good solution, I'll pass it along.
Feedburner - another dirty solution
Because of limited time, for our church site I have the sitewide node/feed hooked to a feedburner feed (which also allows for email subscriptions -0 and the emails look very nice, even including audio enclosure links). I put the feedburner signup block on one of the main pages of the site - so all they have to do is type in their email and click the button.
Lots of people signed up when we sent out a one-time email blast to everyone with the feedburner email subscription link in it - a lot of people signed up that way.
feedburner
Thanks for that explanation and idea! Will definitely look into that.