Value of Mailing Lists

a goldmine!

[petra]

I was worried about using the mass e-mailing function (available on my IPB-powered forums) for fear of annoying my 3000 members, but finally, last night, I did use it.

I mass-mailed all members to alert them about a new article on the main site. The response was incredible, not only did they visit that page but the average page view/member coming in from that email list was 50 pages!

Some of them even sent me emails thanking me for the article.

Just thought I'd share that with any forum owners who have an undiscovered gold mine right under their noses ;)

[Casethejoint]

Preaching to the converted, Petra! ;-) It baffles me why more forums don't make use of massmails for community-related stuff. What are the reasons against them?

[camweh]

Thanks for the wake-up call Petra. I've just added the MOD that tells when members last visited our forum. So owing to results of that and your timely post I'm going to send a wee newsletter out via mass e-mail.

[rogerd]

I think this is a great aid to keeping the community involved, but be wary of spam issues. The mere act of sending a mass mailing might trigger some hosts to flag you, and you can count on at least a few disgruntled individuals reporting you as a spammer. Be sure you have an opt-out link or procedure that's very visible, and that it works. People get REALLY disgruntled when they can't stop the mail. (Why don't they hit "delete" and move on? I don't have an answer, but I do know there are people who make a gigantic fuss if they get an email they didn't request.)

Use a real address for the sender address. Even if you provide an easy "unsubscribe" link in the email, some people will click "Reply" and put "unsubscribe" in the subject or body, or write you a note.