What about different lists?

  • Resolved Frank J.

    (@frank-j)


    4 years, 8 months ago

    Hi again, Brian,

    as I became a fan of your work regarding Noptin I dare asking if you ever thought of different subscriber’s lists.

    I always tried to avoid that because it makes things more complicated when one only want’s to send out a newsletter from time to time to show that a website is alive and kicking. And then life strikes …

    I am thinking of different lists for a volunteer project right now: As an example it would be great to have an extra list for people that are interested in short term alerts (in this case: if a building is in danger, a petition only has a day left, etc.) — but not all subscribers are willing to accept these alert emails: The project would probably lose some of the supporters.

    Cheers, Frank

    PS. Asking for something is easy, I know. To show that I am serious I offer German language support for Noptin.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Author Brian Mutende

    (@picocodes)

    Hi Frank.

    How do you suggest we go around implementing this? Do we add a list-select field on opt-in forms? Or do we allow admins to specify a list for subscribers who sign up via a specific form? Another thing, do we allow a single subscriber to be a member of several lists or do we limit them to a single list?

    Lists are something we previously avoided implementing so as to keep the plugin lightweight and make it a little easier to use (most admins don’t know what a list is and just want to send an email to their active subscribers).

    What if we allowed admins to filter email recipients by a given subscriber field? Would it solve this specific issue? For example, you can ask Noptin to only send an email to users who have a specific custom field? This will work together with the “hidden” field that we’re planning to add in the next update.

    Plugin Author Brian Mutende

    (@picocodes)

    https://translate.www.ads-software.com/locale/de/default/wp-plugins/newsletter-optin-box/

    Thanks in advance!

    Thread Starter Frank J.

    (@frank-j)

    Looking at other newsletter plugins I partly agree: Lists can be confusing.

    What you wrote is probably true, Brian: Many site owners will only use one list — the big one — to send out newsletters once in a while. So lists would be an extra feature fpr them which they would not need. In a ideal solution more than one list could be “hidden” as long as this feature is not activated.

    Even though the backend of the plugin “Email Subscribers” is a mess regarding intuition and user friendliness the software offers a rather good list approach: The admin can decide what list(s) a subscriber will be added to — meaning: no choice for the subscriber.

    As a second method Email Subscribers offers the subscriber to chose from a list of lists defined by the admin. (The subscription form then gets rather messy: All these checkboxes and the GDPR consent are confusing.)

    You mention custom field as a possible criteria for sending out newsletters. I cannot comment on that because I have no idea how this would work. Being limited by the bubble I live in (regarding newsletters) I would probably prefer subscribers who are “members” of one or more lists. Email Subscribers solves this with the typical WordPress approach: category-like.

    Did I miss anything? Well, maybe I didn’t describe the point very well that made me thinking of lists. I will try in a few sentences — even though I am aware that you know what the list thing is about. Sometimes a real life situation helps:

    My latest online project is about saving historic buildings that are endangered. Building a community is the first step — and a regular newsletter for this community is a must to keep people informed and involved.

    In a second step we will have more and more buildings online that are endangered reported by various people. Some will set up a petition. Such a petition needs immediate awareness and it is not a good idea to tell the community only in the next newsletter — which could be in several weeks. This newsletter has to be sent out as soon as possible. “Regular” newsletter recipients could consider this as spam due to a higher frequency.

    So something like a “Petition Alert” list would be a good idea.

    Overall: Yes, it is complicated and I don’t know a newsletter plugin that solves this in a convincing way today. (I kept away from paid services like MailChimp for reasons of privacy. Maybe they offer their own WordPress integration which is close to perfect? I simply don’t know.)

    So much for the moment — this got way too long for 1 am. Please excuse my talkativeness. I am tired.

    Cheers, Frank

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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