TheDPQ
12-19-2006, 02:09 PM
Not much of a writer, too much of a babbler, but i thought I'd share my experiences in setting up and sending Yaxay's (http://www.yaxay.com) first community newsletter.
1. Starting Out
A thought is born!! We want to spread awareness of the new ownership of Yaxay and keep users informed about going ons on the community and any 'industry' news. Right away we decided to keep the first sending small. Just users who recently visited, notify them about the change and anything else we can think of. The community is rather dead and we don't want to do a mass sending to remind them we exist until there is something worth coming back to. This would also allow us to understand better what we want to do with the newsletter.
2. The Design
We have a small private forum where a select users can come and meet with all the staff and help plan things. I started a discussion there about the newsletter and what we wanted out of a design. We ended opted for the 'just ripped off the look fo the site' As we have no photoshop files for our site we used the good old 'screen capture' method. I think we lucked out because i only had to do one concept and some tweaking to come up with our design. I know photoshop but no design skills so it was good our forum look and feel worked so well for a newsletter.
3. The Copy
Again i love to babble but i hate to write. I wrote out the topics i wanted and just kept writing, changing, editing, removing, fixing typos reediting, changing, fixing typos until i was happy with the direction. I used most a lot of it for a announcement on our board as well. We were also fortunate that Adobe came out with the CS3 open beta announcement the day before the send so i had some 'industry' news to put in there. Previously on the forum we had tried something called 'Yaxay Snapshot' where we highlight some threads on the forum. I put this into the newsletter as well.
BTW right at greeting i reminded people they were registered members of Yaxay. Not everyone might remember who we are or why they had gotten our email.
4. Coding
I used tables, font tags, and few images. Not all emails will load images or background colors so no text was added to anything but a white or light background. I made sure any buttons or logos had old tags. A link to the email was linked up at the top and unsubscribe information was placed at the top and bottom of the email.
5. Preparing To Send
I used www.mailchimp.com to send out my blast. It was 1000 emails so it cost $30 bucks. They take care of the bounces. I don't have to worry about our server being on some mail spam list, and they make sure to take unsubscribes off and let me have a nice list so i always know who not to email next if i choose another system. All i do is upload my list, slap in some info, put in a text and HTML version, and sent!! They won't even let you send out with an unsubscribe link so you can't accidentally forget.
6. ....
Ok i sat around for 15 mins before i could bring myself to hit send. I hate sending emails and this was the first i did 'everything' for it. I kept going back and finding things i missed like missing alt tags, or typos, or the wrong username under the wrong thread title. So it too me 15 mins of staring that that send button before i could send it. Am i just weird or does anyone else find clicking send nerve wracking?
7. Sent
/me weeps for joy
8. The Aftermath
So after all that i see only about 140 people opened the email and only 35 people clicked a link. It seems a lot of work for so little return although I may have gotten to help me with tutorials because of it. I suppose in the end just keeping at it and keeping a few loyal posts informed would be good enough.
Btw you can see the end result here: http://forum.yaxay.com/email/001/
1. Starting Out
A thought is born!! We want to spread awareness of the new ownership of Yaxay and keep users informed about going ons on the community and any 'industry' news. Right away we decided to keep the first sending small. Just users who recently visited, notify them about the change and anything else we can think of. The community is rather dead and we don't want to do a mass sending to remind them we exist until there is something worth coming back to. This would also allow us to understand better what we want to do with the newsletter.
2. The Design
We have a small private forum where a select users can come and meet with all the staff and help plan things. I started a discussion there about the newsletter and what we wanted out of a design. We ended opted for the 'just ripped off the look fo the site' As we have no photoshop files for our site we used the good old 'screen capture' method. I think we lucked out because i only had to do one concept and some tweaking to come up with our design. I know photoshop but no design skills so it was good our forum look and feel worked so well for a newsletter.
3. The Copy
Again i love to babble but i hate to write. I wrote out the topics i wanted and just kept writing, changing, editing, removing, fixing typos reediting, changing, fixing typos until i was happy with the direction. I used most a lot of it for a announcement on our board as well. We were also fortunate that Adobe came out with the CS3 open beta announcement the day before the send so i had some 'industry' news to put in there. Previously on the forum we had tried something called 'Yaxay Snapshot' where we highlight some threads on the forum. I put this into the newsletter as well.
BTW right at greeting i reminded people they were registered members of Yaxay. Not everyone might remember who we are or why they had gotten our email.
4. Coding
I used tables, font tags, and few images. Not all emails will load images or background colors so no text was added to anything but a white or light background. I made sure any buttons or logos had old tags. A link to the email was linked up at the top and unsubscribe information was placed at the top and bottom of the email.
5. Preparing To Send
I used www.mailchimp.com to send out my blast. It was 1000 emails so it cost $30 bucks. They take care of the bounces. I don't have to worry about our server being on some mail spam list, and they make sure to take unsubscribes off and let me have a nice list so i always know who not to email next if i choose another system. All i do is upload my list, slap in some info, put in a text and HTML version, and sent!! They won't even let you send out with an unsubscribe link so you can't accidentally forget.
6. ....
Ok i sat around for 15 mins before i could bring myself to hit send. I hate sending emails and this was the first i did 'everything' for it. I kept going back and finding things i missed like missing alt tags, or typos, or the wrong username under the wrong thread title. So it too me 15 mins of staring that that send button before i could send it. Am i just weird or does anyone else find clicking send nerve wracking?
7. Sent
/me weeps for joy
8. The Aftermath
So after all that i see only about 140 people opened the email and only 35 people clicked a link. It seems a lot of work for so little return although I may have gotten to help me with tutorials because of it. I suppose in the end just keeping at it and keeping a few loyal posts informed would be good enough.
Btw you can see the end result here: http://forum.yaxay.com/email/001/