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Newsletters Subscribers Manager - Oscommerce 2.3 & 2.2


sembrouille

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@@Hotclutch

Hate to be a pain.  But I'm really trying. 

 

I noticed that in the BS ver there was no admin/newsletter.php.  In the old ver there was on, and that is still on the site.  It looks like I did not remove it.  Should I remove it and but back the original file?

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@@Hotclutch

 

No I have not locked.  Didn't know - Now I do.  I thought "locked" mint no changes or anything.  Locked one and the buttons are there.  I love life, you can learn something new each day. 

 

I'm trying to learn how to set it up and use it.

 

Thanks so much for staying with me.  I greatly appreciate it.  

 

Reguards

Dean

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Having now a problem with "send".

 

On sending out the "newsletter" I click "send" then I get / customers receiving newsletter: 1 (I'm testing it don't want 1000 to go out just yet) click "send at the bottom and out it goes. :)

 

On sending out the "product notification" I click "send" it wants me to pick out a Item, so I do (why I do not know) I filled out the front part.  So now I wanted to see how it would look in my email box.  I picked a product and click on "send"  THE PROBLEM It takes me to the next page like a preview.  The front page I created is showing but not the item it made me pick before going to this page.  There again I ask why did it make me pick a product if it is not showing it.  - top of screen shows: customers receiving newsletter: 0  and there is no "Send" button. 

 

What I'm I missing.  What is it looking for.  Is there another add on for notifying the customer that needs to be added?  I didn't see one for BS.

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@@Hotclutch

 

When you go under Newsletter/newsletter manager.  Create a new newsletter.  Under "module"  you have 2 options: newsletter or product notification.

 

I had selected "product notification" to see what it does and how it looks when it comes to my email. What program links to it?  Not sure how to use it.  What really goes in content?  I ask because of the above mentioned problem (copied it below this message).  I hope this helps give you a picture.  It looks to me that it is trying to see what customer's wanted to be notified when a product was back in stock.  Because I don't have such a program install it says "customers receiving newsletter: 0".

 

Having now a problem with "send".

 

On sending out the "newsletter" I click "send" then I get / customers receiving newsletter: 1 (I'm testing it don't want 1000 to go out just yet) click "send at the bottom and out it goes. :)

 

On sending out the "product notification" I click "send" it wants me to pick out a Item, so I do (why I do not know) I filled out the front part (content).  So now I wanted to see how it would look in my email box.  I picked a product and click on "send"  THE PROBLEM It takes me to the next page like a preview.  The front page I created is showing but not the item it made me pick before going to this page.  There again I ask why did it make me pick a product if it is not showing it.  - top of screen shows: customers receiving newsletter: 0  and there is no "Send" button. 

 

What I'm I missing.  What is it looking for.  Is there another add on for notifying the customer that needs to be added?  I didn't see one for BS.

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  • 1 year later...

@@sembrouille , et el

 

(This thread has been inactive for over a year, so I hope that people are still following it ...)

 

There was another post asking if this addon could be changed to a footer content module ...

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/topic/410209-newsletters-subscribers-for-footer-content-module/

 

I though I'd tackle it as a challenge B)

 

The adaptation to a footer content module wasn't too bad .. a couple of false starts, but I eventually got it to work. In fact, I have it working as *both* a side box *and* as a footer module ... but I am finding a couple of issues with the base code ...

 

1) There is javascript code to check if the entered email address is valid. This is in the original bm_newsletter.php code, and I have copied it into my cm_footer_newsletters.php code. The problem is, if I have both modules enabled, the javascript code is repeated twice within the page. While I don't have any debugging apps running to tell me if there's a problem with this, my gut feeling is that this javascript 'function' could be moved to its own file in catalog/includes/functions/. Can anyone point me in the right direction on how to create and call this as an 'external' function?

 

Or, perhaps a better option might be ...

 

2) Even with the above mentioned email address checking, there are still bad email address that pass the check ... for example,

@.com 

passes.

 

In the stock version of osC, customers sign up for the newsletters through their account: create_account.php and account_edit.php. Both of these pages do their own email address verification using the builtin function: tep_validate_email() before passing the results to newsletter_subscription.php. This addon also passes its results to newsletter_subscription.php. So, maybe a better solution is to change this addon to use the tep_validate_email() function, instead of the provided javascript code. Has anyone else tried this?

 

TIA

 

Malcolm

Edited by ArtcoInc
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  • 2 months later...

@@ArtcoInc  Malcolm are you still using this add on....I'm looking for something that will allow me to have an email list of folks who haven't registered as customers in addition to the standard email list for those customers who have subscribed.  I found this add on and it sounds like what I want or is something that I can build on at least.  I'd welcome your comments on it if you're still working with it.

 

Dan

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@@Dan Cole

 

I took this on as a challenge, just to see if I could. I got it to work, with the above mentioned 'issues'.

 

With issue #2 (above), I started another thread to discuss this ...

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/topic/410243-email-address-verification/

 

 

That all said, I never put this to use on a live site. I'd have to dig to see if I could pull out the relevant bits of code scattered in my many development folders ...

 

Would you want to use this as a box module (per the original code) or a footer module (per the request in the other thread)?

 

Malcolm

Edited by ArtcoInc
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@@ArtcoInc Don't worry about it Malcolm....I'll poke around with it if I don't come across anything that looks better suited for what I want.  At this point I just want to bring my non-customer email list in house so I can explore ways of syncing it with my customer list.

 

Dan

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@@ArtcoInc Malcolm I think I'll use this add-on as the basis for what I want to do so to answer your question....

 

Would you want to use this as a box module (per the original code) or a footer module (per the request in the other thread)?

 

I'm not really looking to do either....for me I think a popup might be the better way to go so the first thing I did was to grab a copy of Gary's Summer Blow Out #9 - Another Pop Up Box which I modified to send the email address to an outside service that I use.  Now that I have that in place my plan is to change the script to write the email address to a table in osC.  Read Baby Steps.  I'll post an image showing the pop up if I can figure out how to do that again.

 

Dan

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@@Gary is working on something that works with mailchimp. It may have been from one of his 28 days of code things, but I cant remember. I am waiting for him to get back to me with an update to it.

 

With mailchimp you can have multiple lists that receive different newsletters and emails. I am sure people can use different signup forms to subscribe to different lists. May be worth a look.

REMEMBER BACKUP, BACKUP AND BACKUP

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@@14steve14

 

@Gary is working on something that works with mailchimp. It may have been from one of his 28 days of code things, but I cant remember. I am waiting for him to get back to me with an update to it.

 

Thanks Steve....he did have a mailchimp hook, of some sort, in one of his modules and I look forward to seeing what Gary is up to now.  I currently use MailChimp for very specific mailings where I add the list, create the email and set up the campaigns etc. and it seems to work well....my issue with using them versus an in-house routine is in creating targeted email lists and maintaining segmented lists.  If Gary is heading in that direction....I'm in.  

 

If you hear anything further please let me know.

 

Dan

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@@Gary is working on something that works with mailchimp. It may have been from one of his 28 days of code things, but I cant remember. I am waiting for him to get back to me with an update to it.

 

With mailchimp you can have multiple lists that receive different newsletters and emails. I am sure people can use different signup forms to subscribe to different lists. May be worth a look.

Could you check your inbox Steve - emailed you quite some time ago about it ...

G

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Thought I'd post a little update in case anyone is following along or just wants a chuckle.  :rolleyes:

 

As I mentioned previously I modified the popup module that Gary developed to offer visitors the opportunity to subscribe to our mailing list.  I use an outside mailing list service so I needed to add their script to post the email address to the list they maintain for me.  That part of the process was fairly simple since they have a form that is used for that purpose so I simply needed to add that script to the popup module. 

 

With that working I then set up the newsletter table that is used in this contribution...again it was a simple task and just involved running the sql script that was provided.

 

I then turned my attention to adding the email address to the new table...this proved to be a little more difficult then I thought it would be.  Perhaps it was because of the way I approached it.  I didn't want to abandon my external mailing list, at least not at this point.  It offers a double opt-in routine which I didn't want to mess with until I could add the same function to my popup so I used a bit of javascript to attach the appropriate data to the FORM RETURN URL required by my external mailing list.  I then picked up the data from the RETURN URL and updated the new database table.   This was a bit of a learning exercise for me and while it will need to be reworked and simplified when I drop the external list, hopefully some of the learning will stay with me.

 

The next thing I did was to take a copy of the total customers dashboard and modify it so that it would show me the number of subscribers on a daily basis.  I'm a big believer in what gets monitored tends to get done.  Again this was another simple thing to do and I ended up with a nice little newsletter subscribers dashboard.

 

For now I'm going to let the popup go to work and we'll see what impact it has on building my email list.  When I can find the time I'll take a look at what is involved in adding a double opt-in routine. 

 

Dan

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  • 3 weeks later...

For anyone who is following along I have the double opt-in routine working now. :)

 

What I did was to modify the subscription thank you page so it would generate a subscription key that is written to the newsletter subscription table along with the subscribers email address etc. The thank you page advises the subscriber that we use a double opt in process, explains that they will receive an email that needs their confirmation and finally sends the subscriber an email with a confirmation link that has the subscription key attached.  I followed Garys @@burt lead in generating the key.  I hate reinventing the wheel.

 

Clicking on the link the subscriber receives opens another page, the subscription table is updated to indicate that the email is confirmed and the subscriber is informed that the process is complete.   

 

It works pretty well if I do say so myself.

 

Dan 

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  • 4 months later...

My email list has been growing quite nicely since I added the subscriber pop up and I think it is time to take advantage of it.   The subscribers have received some of my newsletter blasts but now I'd like to send some automatic emails to the list   I'm thinking it would be nice to set up a New Products and Specials segment.   To start I want to build....

 

1. a nicely formatted html email that pulls it's content from my New Products page....it'll be a query of course but would follow the formatting and content used for the New Products page.

 

2. create the ability to add segments to my subscribers list so customers can opt in and out of receiving emails for new products and specials.

 

3. bring my email list in house.

 

4. automate the process of generating and sending the emails.

 

There are probably things I'm over looking at this point but I'm sure they will present themselves as I good forward. 

 

To get things started is anyone aware of an add on (or have a routine) that builds an html email based on either their new products or specials?  I hate reinventing the wheel.

 

Dan

Edited by Dan Cole
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  • 4 months later...

With the summer almost over and my slowly becoming a shut in again I thought I would dust off this WIP and see if I can move it along.  As many of you know I'm a cut and paste shopowner so I generally learn as I go.  My memory is not as good as it used to be either so that makes it even more interesting.  

But enough about me.  While I'm getting comfortable with arrays and objects I'm struggling to access an array within an object.  Here is the object I'm working with.

objectInfo Object
(
    [newsletters_id] => 6
    [title] => Adding Module
    [content] => email output here.
    [module] => EMS_marketing
    [mail] => Array
        (
            [customerID] => 11571
            [firstname] => Dan
            [lastname] => Cole
            [smail] => "[email protected]"
        )
    [newsletter_id] => 6
)

At this point I'm just trying to output the values in the array.  Lets say I just want to print my firstname. I tried things like...

echo $nInfo->mail['firstname'];

echo $nInfo->mail->property['firstname'];  

and many different versions of the above...but no joy yet.

I know just enough to be dangerous and I think it is showing here.  I've been googling for an answer but I think I'm just getting more confused.  I know my head is starting to hurt.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Dan

 

Edited by Dan Cole
Editor didn't like my email array name or address. Another lesson learned.
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Never mind...it actually does work.  This picks it up okay...

echo $nInfo->mail['firstname'];

It was being assigned incorrectly to another variable later on in the code making me think it didn't work. 

Dan

 

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  • 2 months later...

In an effort to improve customer engagement I developed an Anniversary Email a few years ago which has been working well.  Customers have been pretty impressed by it and it generates additional sales.  As they say an image it worth a thousand words so here is the email so you can see what I've been doing. 

Capture.JPG.0453f29cfecf8daa9941143743ecd259.JPG

Over the years I've noticed a bit of a glitch with the database query when we reach year end and since I was upgrading the mailing to use @tgely Gergely's HTML Emails I thought I would see if I could sort out the query.   For some reason the query isn't spanning the calendar year so doesn't include records for the previous year when the date range spans the year end.  I've tried reworking the query several times but I can seem to figure it out...it's kicking my butt.   Does anyone @bruyndoncx perhaps, have any idea how I can rework the query to get it to work on a consistent basis.  Here is the query I'm working with.

SELECT c.customers_firstname, c.customers_lastname, c.customers_id, c.customers_email_address, c.customers_dob, date_format(c.customers_dob, '%M %D') as date_of_birth, CURDATE(), (YEAR(CURDATE())-YEAR(c.customers_dob)) - (RIGHT(CURDATE(),5) < RIGHT(c.customers_dob,5)) AS number_of_years FROM customers c WHERE concat(year(now()), '', date_format(c.customers_dob,'%m%d')) < date_format(DATE_ADD(now(), INTERVAL 7 DAY),'%Y%m%d') AND concat(year(now()), '', date_format(c.customers_dob,'%m%d')) > date_format(SUBDATE(now(), INTERVAL 3 DAY),'%Y%m%d') AND c.customers_newsletter = '1' AND c.customers_dob != '0000-00-00 00:00:00' AND c.customers_email_address NOT LIKE 'MOPS%' ORDER BY date_of_birth

Dan

 

 

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