phplist MAILING LIST SUPPORT
How do I manage my lists?
- Your lists have a management interface which requires your unique
login. The address is unique to your configuration. Please contact
our web dept. if
you have misplaced your information.
How do I add users (subscribers) to my lists?
- Users (or you) may add new users (subscribers) through your lists's subscribe
page. The subscribe page address is unique for each site. Contact
our web dept. if you have misplaced the address (or look for
it on your web site).
- From within your management interface, follow the 'users' link,
then click 'add a user'.
- Users do not receive messages until they confirm their subscription.
When a user signs up for your list, they are sent an email
confirmation request. They must then click the link
included in the email to agree to list membership. Users who have not
confirmed their subscription are shown as "unconfirmed" and will
not receive messages.
How do I send a message to my users (subscribers)?
- From within your management interface, follow
the 'send a message' link.
- Create your message in the message 'Content' tab. Be sure to save
changes before leaving the page.
- Select a list to which to send the message in the 'Lists' tab (although
you may have just one list, phplist can support more than one list,
so you need to explicity set which list to send to).
- Because phplist can save drafts and schedule messages to be sent
at a future time, you must process
the message queue to actually send the message to the list.
From the right menu, select 'process queue' and leave the browser
window open until the result is displayed (usually 4 or 5 lines,
ending with "Finished, All done").
phplist has many additional features, including:
- templates. A template is a re-usable HTML message
with standard layout and text that you use in more than one message.
For example, a newsletter template might have a your
logo at the top and the name of your company. At the bottom, you
might have your company's address and unsubscription
links. A template won't include the contents
of the newsletter, since that would change for each newsletter. Instead,
the template has a placeholder where the content goes. For more about
templates, see Phplist
Documentation:Templates.
- placeholders. A placeholder is a special word
that holds the place for content that is to be
inserted later. If you have used a "mail merge" function in a word
processing programming, the placeholder is a similar concept. In
phpList, placeholders hold the place for dynamic data and allow you
to personalize messages. For more about
placeholders, see Phplist
Documentation:Placeholders.
- scheduling. Messages can be "embargoed" so
that the message is scheduled to be sent at a later date. The message
will be queued at the time you specify. However, you must
run the process queue for sending to begin. Sending will not begin
automatically.
What are bounces and how do I process them?
When you send a message to your list,
some of the messages may fail to be delivered and "bounce" back to
a special address used by the mailing list software. Bounces can
indicate a temporary or a permanent problem with your subscriber's
address. (For example, they changed email addresses and didn't let
you know. Messages to the old address will bounce.)
You should use
'Process Bounces' to check for bounces after you send a
message. You may not see bounces right away, so check again in
a few days (or at least before you send your next message).
Once messages to an address have bounced a set number of times (usually
5 times), that subscriber's address is blacklisted so that no more
messages are sent to them.
For more
about bounce processing, see
Phplist Documentation:Process Bounces.
Are there laws or rules that I should know about?
Yes. Arguably the most important one is the "CAN-SPAM
Act of 2003". This a US Federal law effective in 2004.
CAN-SPAM establishes requirements for those who send
commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies
whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law,
and gives consumers the right to ask emailers to stop spamming
them.
We
recommend you visit
the FTC's web site to get the full details, but here
is a brief summary of the main provisions:
- Your email's "From," "To," and
routing information – including the originating domain
name and email address – must be accurate and identify
the person who initiated the email.
- The subject line of your message cannot mislead
the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.
- You must give your subscribers an opt-out method which you must
honor within 10 business days
- Commercial email must include your valid physical postal
address, be identified
as an advertisement let the recipient know that they recipient can
opt out of receiving more commercial email from you.
My question is not listed here. How do I get an answer?
Contact us!
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