Gathering information for newsletter

I want to start gathering names and email addresses for a newsletter which I want to send out every week or two. What are some good programs or software to use for this. I will need a way to organize all the names and emails. A way to send out the newsletters and a way for people to unscript if they chose. Also I need a way to validate email addresses before actually adding them to the list.

What are some key ideas to remember when gathering this information and sending newsletters?

 

I like PHPlist: http://tincan.co.uk/phplist

It's easy to use and easy to customize but most important it uses double opt-in (don't go without it)

The impresive list of features is here http://tincan.co.uk/?lid=453
and the community is here: http://www.phplist.com/forums/

The best is it's.... FREE

 

What is "double opt-in"

 

"double opt-in" means the user signs up for your newsletter (opting in), but then needs to respond to an email request for confirmation (opting in again).

This has two benefits:
1 It keeps you legal re: the CAN SPAM act.
2 It ensures that your readership is well targeted.

 

plmerlin

have you started your journey. I am also looking for the same as you are- some suggestions with tools and technolgy.

kashem
articlenic.com - submit your article here

 

Here is a what google define finds about it: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&oi=defmore&defl=en&q=defineouble+opt-in

Has already stated, not using it is opening the Spam Can of worms (been there done that)

 

I am sort of new. I have been working with someone side by side but I have just been the "grunt". I am trying to make a run at it a bit my own way so to speak.

I will get to my point, what are planning to do to get them to actually sign up? Give away? Name squeeze before they can enter certain areas of your site?? I am just curious.

 

Now could I use PHPlist to manage users as well?

Like I want users to sign up in order to post comments on my site. Can PHPlist be tied in or am I talking about two seperate issues here?

 

Yes you can integrate phplist into your site and it's quite easy to do.
see: http://tincan.co.uk/?lid=453 and the community: http://www.phplist.com/forums/

Yes but will need some dB twealking to do. PHPlist forum has several good example. The only integration we couldn't do was with LDAP.

 

Awesome sounds like phpList is just the tool I'm looking for.

What is "LDAP"

 

LDAP is used to do authentification:

You use it only when you need like synchronizing password between eGroupware and IMAP email accounts. We tried to use LDAP to synchronize PHPlist password with IMAP password for our admins but we gave up.