Ezmlm and other mailing lists

[adjohnson]

I have a client who has a 2,500 user ezmlm list. He wants to collect additional information such as state (among other things) so he can selective e-mail to subsections of his list (such as e-mailing to all the Colorado addresses).

I could write some code that would save the additional info in a MySQL database but I still don't see how I would be able to interface that with ezmlm when it comes time to do a selective e-mail. Any ideas?

Or I could try to get some 3rd party opt-in mailing list software and install it on our webspace. But I understand there is a limit to how many people can be on our list when using another mailing list software. However I think I read that I can ask permission before conducting such a mailing? If it is a 2,500 user opt-in list, will Futurequest be likely to ok the mailing?

Are there any recommendations for another opt-in mailing list software that allows for more user information to be collected?

Thanks for any help. I'm under the gun to figure this out.
Amy

[adjohnson]

I have a client who has a 2,500 user ezmlm list. He wants to collect additional information such as state (among other things) so he can selective e-mail to subsections of his list (such as e-mailing to all the Colorado addresses).

I could write some code that would save the additional info in a MySQL database but I still don't see how I would be able to interface that with ezmlm when it comes time to do a selective e-mail. Any ideas?

Or I could try to get some 3rd party opt-in mailing list software and install it on our webspace. But I understand there is a limit to how many people can be on our list when using another mailing list software. However I think I read that I can ask permission before conducting such a mailing? If it is a 2,500 user opt-in list, will Futurequest be likely to ok the mailing?

Are there any recommendations for another opt-in mailing list software that allows for more user information to be collected?

Thanks for any help. I'm under the gun to figure this out.
Amy
Oh dear. I just became a little bit more educated. It looks like I HAVE to use ezmlm to run our 2,500 user mailing list. So is there anyway to use my own MySQL database to selectively mail to a subset of an ezmlm mailing list?

My client is just not happy with the solution of paying a monthly fee to use a service to provide an opt-in mailing list. He wants me to program a solution.

Thanks again for any help.
Amy

[Bruce]

Oh dear. I just became a little bit more educated. It looks like I HAVE to use ezmlm to run our 2,500 user mailing list. So is there anyway to use my own MySQL database to selectively mail to a subset of an ezmlm mailing list?We don't have MySQL support built into ezmlm-idx at this time. Using MySQL or not, there is no good way to email just a subset of a list at once. If you can arrange in advance that the addresses get subscribed to different lists (based on the subsets you want), then it becomes possible. For example, we know one site that has set up one list for each of the geographical areas they wish to send mail to, and all subscribers are added to just one such list.

[adjohnson]

Thank you Bruce for your reply. Unfortunately we will have many different search criteria in addition to state of residence, so we have to have a database to help us create the sublists.

What about this as a solution....

We would get a third party opt-in mailing list installed on our site and enter our 2,500 e-mail addresses that have been collected via ezmlm. HOWEVER, our sublists that we send to would always be less than 500 per mailing. Would that be ok?

Thanks,
Amy

[adjohnson]

Thank you Bruce for your reply. Unfortunately we will have many different search criteria in addition to state of residence, so we have to have a database to help us create the sublists.

What about this as a solution....

We would get a third party opt-in mailing list installed on our site and enter our 2,500 e-mail addresses that have been collected via ezmlm. HOWEVER, our sublists that we send to would always be less than 500 per mailing. Would that be ok?

Thanks,
Amy

Let me just note that I am a messenger for my client at this point and he wanted to know about the 3rd party software sublists being less than 500 per mailing.

[sheila]

I'm afraid that breaking the mailing list down into batches or sublists of 500 or fewer and then not using ezmlm to send the emails, is not considered to be in compliance with the Terms of Service.

The emails for a list of more than 500 subscribers do need to be sent via ezmlm. The reason for this is that ezmlm uses a separate mail queue, that is intended for bulk mailings. We move bulk mailings into a separate queue in order to protect the quality of service for other, non-bulk mailings.

You would certainly be welcome to do your list handling via some script of your own authoring, or via MySQL, but once you have arrived at the list of addresses, they should be sent through ezmlm to ensure that they are being sent out through the bulk-email queue.

It is possible to create on-the-fly ezmlm lists using command line instructions or to subscribe/unsubscribe addresses to/from an existing list via the command line. In other words, it would be possible to write a script that finds the addresses via MySQL, creates the mailing list on-the-fly (or adds/removes email addresses to/from an existing list), and then sends out the email to the list.

For some more information about using ezmlm via command line instructions, see:
http://service.FutureQuest.net/kb141
http://ezmlm.org/

[sheila]

By the way, I just wanted to note, that although it seems that breaking the sends down into batches of less than 500 might be one way to deal with large lists, our experience in this area unfortunately shows that granting exceptions to the TOS in the long run creates problems in managing the mail server and mail queue. For this reason, we have adopted a "no exceptions" policy, and if it is not possible to send out the emails for your client via ezmlm, then you would want to look into third party list hosting services.

[adjohnson]

Sheila, thanks for clarifying. It sounds like I will be able to use scripting to meet my clients goal. I will also continue to use EZMLM for our main list to maintain our OPT-IN status, and will use scripting to get the current list and create a sublist.

Thanks,
Amy