Newsletters - do they help?

Jon12345

Jon12345

Well-known member
I am looking into the topic of creating a newsletter for my forum, and would like to hear the experiences of others who have created one. I've come across Sendy today, which is supposed to cut the cost down of sending out emails to like $1 for 10K, so the ROI of setting up a newsletter might be worthwhile.

What are your experiences in having a newsletter for your site? Did it give a spike in traffic? Did it help grow user engagement? Any learning experiences you care to share?
 
Newsletters tend to bring in some traffic, depending on the content and userbase it can be a hit or miss. Offer valuable content on the newsletter, and you'll see that they work.
 
I run a college sports forum and when we had Threadloom, we saw fantastic engagement off of the weekly emails we sent out. It was a bummer when they shuttered that. Really wish there was core functionality like that built into XF.

Just a simple place to enter a "State of the Union" update blurb for the week followed by "Here is what you've missed out on this week:" and then a list of the X top threads. Bonus points would be to have a block for most active poster of the week and upcoming member birthdays, events, etc.
 
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Our newsletter generates a significant amount of revenue, but it is not automated. The following sections are included:

Intro story
Sponsor blurb with CTA
Links to Top Threads w/ Descriptions
Industry News
Conclude the story

The email marketing system we use has become overly complex. We are about halfway through the setup process of Sendy.

Sendy is installed on our server and connected to SendGrid. We have also replaced the default email handler with Sendy. The next step is to configure the addon. [Sendy's support team is outstanding!]

You’re welcome to check out our newsletter (and deconstruct the formula):

https://www.vrmb.com/subscribe/
 
Moshe1010 said:
Newsletters are 1995, and I think for most users they just don’t work. I moved to deliver via WhatsApp and push notifications
Click to expand...
I send around 120,000 newsletters a week. with a 70% open rate. forum-Sendy-Amazon

A dozen threads, the latest classifieds, photo of the week etc. Takes about 1 hour of my week. They work very well. I’ll stay in 1995 because It’s easily the most profitable hour of my week.
 
It all depends if you have the time to do them.
Personally i don't worry about it and will do things like a vlog to keep everyone upto date.
That's always is an option.
 
I'm interested in this too. Some of you seem to be using certain email providers. My email provider is just the server - will it handle 300 members?
 
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