What would you like to see in an newsletter plug-in?

Question

Im building a plug-in that'll hook into MailChimp.com. It'll give you the option to import all existing members into a MC list and add any new members that confirm their email address. What else would you like to see this plug-in do?

Answer 1

Sounds like a great idea.

But why only the list of members who confirmed their email address? Can it be configurable via admin panel? Many of my members didn't confirm their email but they are still very active and very good members of the community.

Comments

I included the option to add people without needing to confirm them but I recommend you use at least one form of email confirmation (either the built in Q2A or the Mail Chimp option) to prevent getting abuse complaints and having problems with your Mail Chimp account.

Answer 2

The plug-in is available here https://github.com/MichaelApproved/Question2Answer-Mailing-List-Manager Please let me know if you have problems OR if you have a successful installation so I know it works.

NOTE: This isn't meant to work with Wordpress or other external membership installations. I have a check in place to make sure the user knows that but, since I don't have a WP test install, I'm not able to test that warning.

Comments

thanks a ton

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Looks very promising. BUT:
Your script exports Q2A user emails to external service (MailChimp.com).
It is worth noticing, due to the privacy issue and the notes in other parts of Q2A:

 'Privacy: Your email address will not be shared or sold to third parties.'

Maybe you could power non-external newsletter tool ?

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@mbabug - You're welcome. Upvote if you end up liking it.

@Krzysztof - You can edit the privacy message in the admin page admin->emails.

I believe an email blast tool is on the roadmap for 1.5 but MC will probably be more robust since it's a SAAS that's just focused on email newsletters.

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I think a good solution to the privacy issue would be to let users opt-in to receiving newsletters (a check box during signup). Weakening the privacy protection might result in less people joining.

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Emails from the admin is a reasonable expectation when joining a service but I agree that there should be an option to let the member opt out when joining. I would also like the ability to give the member the option to join other lists at the same time. I don't know how this can be achieved right now but I'll keep this feature in mind as I learn more about the Q2A code.

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I have just installed, everything seem to be ok.

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That's great, thanks for the update! Can you please mention which version you're using because I haven't tested it with 1.5 and it would be great to know if it's working with a recent version.