Forum Moderators: phranque
I'm about to embark on a project to create a newsletter in either HTML or text format for possibly 20,000 paid subscribers. Unfortunately this is my first undertaking of such a project, so any advice would be appreciated. :D
First off, since subscribers will be allowed to choose between plain text and HTML, would I have to basically write two newsletters, one text and one HTML for publication, or is there something out there that can convert the newsletter created from text to HTML and vice versa? How are templates usually created, within a mail manager, or do people use a web design editor like Dreameaver to create their newsletters, or at least the templates for them? In addition, I seem to recall the possibility of embedding code in plain text newsletters that allows you to place hyperlinks without typing out its entire length, which can make for some awkward word wrapping. This is also a primary concern because we want our newsletter to look professional in its plain text form, and are unsure what medium would be best to help us format our plain text version, making it as organized as possible for all the different types of email clients out there.
HTML actually shouldn't be as problematic. Our goal is to provide color coded HTML content that relies on color more or rather than images, cutting bandwith and giving subscribers HTML rich content even when offline. Again it falls to what type of medium would be best suitable to accomplish this. Software that could double check word wrapping, spell checking and automate some of the more repetitive tasks would probably be ideal. Time is essential, the less time spent on formatting newsletters for publishing, (and thus more on content) the better. Templates are essential here, so information and resources on how we can best develop them (and in what medium) would be appreciated.
Finally, this is the probably the most complicated part. Since our subscribers would be paid subscribers, we also need a billing system in place. Specifically we want to allow potentially new subscribers to receive a trial subscription for a period of time, and then be sent a notice once their trial period nears completion, asking if they want to continue their subscription, and if so give information on how to make a payment. Obviously, the billing system must ominitor how long a user has been subscribed and when to send them notices when they near subsccription expiration. If anyone has any experience with setting something like this up please let me know. Largely it's a matter of integrating a billing system into a mailing manager for effective tracking, etc.
If you have any links to relevant articles and resources or recommended software and scripts we should look at, etc., that can help us get started, please feel free to StickyMail me them. I had thought this would be a relatively easy project, but already I'm starting to get headaches trying to come up with a viable system.
:-O
Sorry for the posting length. Thanks for any replies, and Happy New Year!
Here's a thread about HTML and text newsletters [webmasterworld.com] that may offer you some food for thought.
