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Re: Magazine to newsletter
philwareham wrote #292482:
…if the result is more blogging then I’m all for it.
Heh… well that’s a different side of the coin, right? Magazine-syndrome. You can lay a red carpet and offer back rubs, but you can’t make anyone write.
I’d say blog is more important than newsletter at this moment. Once we have a new site further along and actually, hopefully, the textpattern.com DNS within our control, I can look at a newsletter subscription service (probably on MailChimp since I already know and like that platform).
Definitely the blog is an important priority, but in this case I don’t think the margin is so big to not do both. A newsletter (and I agree about MailChimp) is super easy and an immediate win. No development is needed. The sooner you start talking to people, regardless of platform and sexy look, the better. Don’t wait for the planets of seven galaxies to align on their respective axises. That’s kind of been the problem the last couple of years, as I see it.
Just sayin’.
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Re: Magazine to newsletter
Destry wrote #292483:
A newsletter (and I agree about MailChimp) is super easy and an immediate win.
Yes.
However.
A newsletter needs to be more sustainable and regular than blog posts. Every x days, weeks, whatever on an expected schedule.
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#51 2015-07-02 14:24:41
- uli
- Moderator
- From: Cologne
- Registered: 2006-08-15
- Posts: 4,304
Re: Magazine to newsletter
Destry wrote #292481:
Is it possible to pull emails from the forum?
I don’t think so:
Your email address is only used to help us prevent spam from flooding the forum, and to allow you to make use of forum features (such as topic subscription). It is never shared or sold to third parties, nor will you be subscribed to any kind of mailing lists.
[Quoted from forum.textpattern.com/register.php ]
In bad weather I never leave home without wet_plugout, smd_where_used and adi_form_links
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Re: Magazine to newsletter
I was going to suggest the announcement list(s) at lists.xpattern.net, but it looks like they’re offline right now.
Email marketing rules and laws vary wildly between jurisdictions, so the safest/cleanest (i.e., best) route is to set up an announcement list and then start populating from scratch.
Footnote: would be neat to have some form of CTA in the admin-side to subscribe to the announcement list to say there’s a new version available. As much as I dislike working with Magento, I have to admit their announcements section is pretty good. Even the WordPress admin portal is kind of neat info-wise.
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Re: Magazine to newsletter
gaekwad wrote #292502:
Email marketing rules and laws vary wildly between jurisdictions, so the safest/cleanest (i.e., best) route is to set up an announcement list and then start populating from scratch.
Any newsletter subscriber list would indeed be set up from scratch, not by auto populating from existing databases we hold.
Email marketing rules and laws vary wildly between jurisdictions, so the safest/cleanest (i.e., best) route is to set up an announcement list and then start populating from scratch.
Maybe in the future, this would definitely be a wise move – let’s revisit after moving forward all the work we have on the list already.
I can set up a MailChimp account once I know what our official Textpattern general email address is (waiting for confirmation on that from Robert).
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Re: Magazine to newsletter
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Re: Magazine to newsletter
The point of this entire thread, if I’m not mistaken (and to refocus), is that wavesource is offering his services to Textpattern in the marketing department, where he apparently has a couple decades of experience writing persuasive copy (the kind marketing copy is). Somewhere along the line Bloke made it clear contributions are welcome. So it seems to add up that producing a regular newsletter might not be an issue, even if the interval of publication is quarterly, though David should probably come out and say it plainly that he’s willing to fill that role and be semi-regular.
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Re: Magazine to newsletter
gaekwad wrote #292492:
A newsletter needs to be more sustainable and regular than blog posts. Every x days, weeks, whatever on an expected schedule.
There’s no difference as far as outward channels go — blog, newsletter, Twitter account, whatever — for a project like this; it’s all content marketing and all channels should all have a plan for use in relation to one another and operate by some schedule, ideally speaking. Those schedules may be different for strategic reasons, but the schedules should exist for all channels for them to be worthwhile. The mag couldn’t publish on schedule and look what happened. Same is true for the developer blog, historically speaking (and we all know it), so here’s to looking forward to that change.
Where all that falls down is when an outfit doesn’t understand the content marketing stuff, or doesn’t care, or cares but can’t do anything about it for various reasons. Reasons might include a lack of HR, lack of tech or tech know-how, or be a governance roadblock.
If what you’re really suggesting is there’s no human resource for filling the shoes of a newsletter editor, then it’s a good reason not to set one up. But, there’s wavesource, waving hello — Hi David! — so it’s not an HR issue, seemingly. And I know Textpattern cares about itself (no?) and is tech savvy, so it’s not values and know-how. Which means it’s adding up to a governance issue. Or maybe a time issue, like ‘no one has time today but we’ll get to it in the near future’. We can all understand that. But if it’s ‘we’re never going to do it’, then it’s definitely a governance roadblock. Someone at the top.
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Re: Magazine to newsletter
I don’t think a newsletter has to be that regular. So I’m saying yes to the idea.
Once I have a Textpattern account set up on MailChimp we can put a signup box onto the Textpattern.com homepage and then, once a decent number of subscribers sign-up, we can plan a first transmission.
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Re: Magazine to newsletter
Excellent, Phil. That’s what I’m talking about. Taking steps to get it done.
David… you’ve got some time to warm up on deck. Or start early and promote that newsletter list in the social waves. ;)
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Re: Magazine to newsletter
Bloke wrote #292344:
So, exploring this notion of an open blog, what infrastructure does it need?
(Ironically?) Medium.com almost has what you want. Create a publication. Set editors. Anyone can be invited to submit articles. Editors can review/edit before publishing, and can publish drafts into an article. You can push articles out as a newsletter. Comments can be made paragraph by paragraph. There’s inline WYSIWYG editing. And you can publish notifications to Twitter and Facebook.
You can also pull published articles from other sites/blogs into Medium and push them out to other websites.
Now if only there was a Txp plugin to make it work together :)
Last edited by maverick (2015-07-02 23:53:30)
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#60 2015-07-03 01:39:10
- wavesource
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- From: Australia
- Registered: 2011-08-02
- Posts: 56
Re: Magazine to newsletter
Destry wrote #292510:
though David should probably come out and say it plainly that he’s willing to fill that role and be semi-regular.
Yep – confirming that
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