Hi All,

I have a client who wishes to have a mailing list added to their website.

They want the emails to be automatically saved into a database, which can then be easily used with some kind of email out facility. Either their existing email, or otherwise.

I've never done anything like this before, and would massively appreciate any information from more experienced members. Like; How do these things usually work? Where to start? What software to use?; Is there good 'off the shelf' software, that you can more or less plug and play into a bespoke Classic ASP website?

The current contact form is at http://www.mason-uk.co.uk/contact.asp

At this stage we are thinking of adding a 'opt in' tick box, but open to other ideas.

Thanks in Advance

Rich

One word - Mailchimp - http://mailchimp.com

Thanks,

Is that easy to integrate into a pre-existing contact form?

By that I mean: is there an easy way to collect emails from a website and automatically add them to something like MailChimp without having to copy and paste each one manually

Edited February 13, 201412 yr by AblazeRich

A newsletter sign-up widget is by far the easiest solution. Adding newsletter fields into your contact form could be complicated. It sounds like you would need to integrate the two somehow, and as your site is built in classic asp, you're going to be limited with options.

 

Another option would be to use a third-party service like Wufoo for forms. It's already integrated with MailChimp (http://www.wufoo.com/2010/02/08/improved-mailchimp-integration-with-real-time-notifications/).

Has anyone managed to integrate it (mail chimp or similar) into the same form that they use to receive emails from their website?

Not used it with mailchimp, but lets think this through. 1 form can only be processed to 1 destination (as far as I am aware). So using an api form will not work as it submits to mail chimp and then the enquiry information would be lost.

 

So in theory you will need to process the form and either send data to mail chimp for the mailing list or store the mailing list information in a local db. The next problem is that now the data is in your db and not on mail chimp. You could then either do a monthly csv export and import to mail chimp or you could write your own mail sender to work locally. The down side of running your own send mail is that you need to make sure the spf record is correct and that you have written an unsubscribe method. The plus side of mail chimp is they are designed for this purpose and have much cooler tools at the click of a mouse than having to write the whole thing.

 

I suggest contacting mail chimp and explaining what you want to do. I have found most support of larger api providers are flexible and help where they can to integrate with you so they gain business.

Thanks guys,

Contacted Mailchimp, no joy, plenty of support for other languages, but I'm not really a back end developer, I only understand a bit of Classic ASP. Although if something was pretty much ready programmed I could always drag and drop it in.

 

I had an idea, the current form sends the email and takes the user to a Thank You page, the Name, Email etc, could be passed to a second form -ready filled, with simply a button say 'Add to Mailing List' or similar. Its not ideal, but better than having two totally seperate forms...

The question is whether I can make it work....

 

Any feedback on this as an idea?

To prefill the mailing list for you will need to get the info needed from the previous form and echo into the form fields. It depends if mail chimp api (not familiar with it) is sealed iframe or if you can edit the fields manually.

Thanks guys.

Got it to pass the information from the email form to the mailing list sign up. It's not ideal, but it works.

Check it out here:

http://www.mason-uk.co.uk/contact.asp

Edited March 25, 201412 yr by AblazeRich