Community Newsletter

What are your thoughts on community newsletters? Do you send one out to your users? If so, how frequently and what do you include?

As a member of forums do you find these newsletters annoying or enjoyable? What do you like to see in them?

 

Here's what I've found with Newsletters & vBulletin: The support is crappy and they never seem to work right. I've bought two paid add-ons, both Combull and GAZ (The Geek Gazette) combull was the worst, half my members never even got the email. GAZ was better but there were still some people that never said they got it. I checked their options and the newsletter option was checked, had them check their spam folders, still no go. To that end, until the software gets better, I'm not bothering with it. I know Greg aka noppid (of vBPicGallery Fame { www.cpurigs.com }) has a new newsletter mod which I haven't tried yet but having used his products before he's top notch on support so I wouldn't hesitate to use it.

Aside from that, after sending out a newsletter I did notice a spike in active over the next couple of days, I guess it wakes people up and says HEY we're still here but on the other hand my regulars said it was practically useless to them (here's the thread: Newsletter your thoughts? - Our DJ Talk - DJ Help and Resources Chat! open to public) Both commbull and GAZ were autogenerated with the latest threads. I can see their point truth be told I delete most forum's newsletters without even reading them because it's just auto-generated crap.

I like the way Peggy (of vB-Faq Fame) does it, she creates her newsletter with WebTemplates then send outs a simple note using vB's built in mass email feature with a link.

Eventually I plan on restarting a newsletter using Peggy's method, making it monthly and having it more personable, perhaps a bio of a member, a special deal from one of our sponsors, etc that will be pretty cool.

The flip side of newsletters are all the bounce messages-- How do you deal with them? I'll start a thread.

 

Thanks for the input, Dan. Aside from striking up some discussion, I created this thread because I'm looking into a newsletter for this forum. Do you have a link to one of Peggy's newsletters? I can't seem to find any but out-dated copies.

 

Oh I'm sorry I thought you were asking about newsletter options for vB.. Leave it to me to misinterpret something.

Here's what looks to be her latest: TbD Newsletter .. this one looks auto-generated though. She's also now a member here too so she may stop by and post about it.

 

I think they are a good idea but to be completely honest I tend not to read them.

 

My newsletter is a mod that Chris (my co-admin) coded. It sits on its own page on the forum. I simply email out a howdy and a link to the newsletter, to my members. I try very hard to include as little as possible of forum stats, etc.

I hate the newsletters that you get that give you nothing more than a little hi from the admin, then the rest is just forum stats, latest posts, latest threads, latest polls,. etc. I can get that at the forum. Tell me something newsworthy, or don't bother me with a newsletter!

 

Personally, I never understood why people want to send out newsletters from within vBulletin using a slow and resource heavy process via PHP when there are much better solutions out there.

Even Mailman, a seemingly centuries old Perl script, is better than trying to process thousands of emails through the vBulletin control panel or a Scheduled Task. If you look in your hosting package control panel, you will find that you can easily create mailing lists that can be accessed from an email address or an interface that they provide. All you have to do is provide the user list and content.

When the Community Crier was started at Sitepoint many years ago, we used mailman. I simply deleted the userlist every week and imported a new one from vBulletin. I am sure that today, it wouldn't be hard to write some code to do this but that method worked back in 2001. Mailman allowed us to send 50,000 emails in an hour with no increased load on the web server. So my recommendation is to use dedicated mailing list software if you're going to send newsletters.

It may be a little more difficult to build the content instead of pushing a button in the Admin CP but the user experience is increased many fold.

As far as getting users to read your newsletter, you need to involve them in the creation process. Have a member of the month feature. Or highlight a member's website, blog, xbox live profile, etc... Make the newsletter an extension of your community and not just a rehash of what happened since the last newsletter. Also gauge the amount of time between newsletters. Twice a month should be sufficient for a small to medium sized community. Once a month for a large community. You don't need to send a newsletter every week if there is nothing to say.

 

I think most people like the idea of the email using the forum style.
I couldn't care less what it looks like, as long as it gives me relevant info, and a desire to return to that forum - which forum stats definitely do not do.

 

Ah now see, I've always found that the visual appearance of the newsletter has always had an effect on how people perceive it.

 

My experience with newsletters is that it will wake some inactive users up for a brief period of time. I will see the 'I had forgotten about this place' posts and then about a week later, those same people are once again inactive.

I find I get a lot of meaningless newsletters from some forum sites. After receiving 2 or 3 of them, I tend to delete them un-opened. As a result, I've pretty much given up on using them for my own sites.

 

This,

I think most members will treat it like spam.

 

Exactly; this is what I do for the majority of the newsletters I receive from forums.

 

yep same here.

 

I think a better alternative is the individual email to those who are inactive - although I admit I sometimes mass mail when I feel there is a need, e.g. announcing that a free conference for teachers sponsored by the site is coming up. I even included it in the TOS that they agree that the site owner has the right to send them "periodic notices".

As to frequency, it depends on my mood and the time I have. There was a time I sent one every week.

 

I've been thinking of using a service like HTML Email Marketing from MailChimp for my newsletters. But, I'm not sure if I wanted to go that way or not. And, based on the feedback, it doesn't look like most folks here are even interested if/when they receive it.

 

Depends on the newsletter. If its just a rehash of the threads posted to in the last week then its probably not needed. If you plan for your newsletter to include additional information and resources than it can be... For a Disney board, if you have the traffic, trying to get coupons from hotels, motels and restaurants around the area and distributing those in a newsletter would be a nice idea (and a good way to make a little income). Or have articles on different aspects that aren't in the discussion boards.

For instance, I didn't readily see any notices that Wayne Allwine has passed on your forum. That would be good content for a weekly newsletter. We'll have to wait and see if the next person to voice Mickey Mouse is as talented.

I'd sign up for a Disney Forum newsletter if it included chances to win tickets for the El Capitan to watch the pre-releases of their movies.

p.s. Your dropdown menu looks better than mine so I'll have to try and up the ante some.

 

Yes Wayne, I had plans to sell adspace on the newsletter (have already two dedicated advertisers committed) as well as discount information and news and such. So, I would think that a Disney-related newsletter would work for me.

Speaking of Wayne Allwine, we had a thread that same evening that it was reported....

Wayne Allwine, Voice of Mickey Mouse, Passes at Age 62 - Walt Disney Boards - Message Boards & Forum Discussing The Genius Of Walter Elias Disney!

....very sad. Not sure if you knew, but his wife in real life is the voice of Minnie Mouse as well. Check the embedded videos in that thread for an interview with the both of them conducted by Leonard Maltin.

PS. Thanks for the nice words on the menu, I'm still working on it, but I'm VERY happy with the results so far.

 

I've considered adding a newsletter, but I'm worried people will start relying on it to tell them what the latest threads are and not bother to visit unless they have something to say.

 

That's a very good point, Michelle. I never looked at it that way.

 

Well, I made a newsletter template for my site and for another site[gaming] which they are planning to use once I code it. I never intend to put the latest threads, just some highlights and sneak peaks so they'd wanna visit more. For SD, pictures of the latest releases/featured work. For the gaming site, screenshots of gameplays, etc.

SD's Newsletter[not coded]


Battleforum's Newsletter[Not coded]