Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with newsletter

Great Free Newsletters

aburd — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:13:48 -0800

What are some great newsletters? I really like John Maudlin's "Thoughts from the Frontline" and the Stratfor free weekly intelligence email. I tend to read them on my phone during downtime and I really like the format. What are some other great free weekly email newsletters that you all enjoy? All topics welcome.

How do I announce my marriage to alumni of a school that my spouse dropped out of?

mrsshotglass — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:42:46 -0800

What is the etiquette for writing class notes involving students who didn't graduate? Mr. Shotglass and I met in college years ago and I'd like to include a blurb about our recent nuptials in the alumni magazine. Twist is, I graduated from that school while my Mr. transferred elsewhere. How do I denote that he was in fact a student at that school some point when I can't write in his major and graduation year?

"I am interested in your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter"

exlotuseater — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:03:02 -0800

Suggestions for English department newsletter? I am an Associate Editor for the English department newsletter at my uni, and am looking for hive mind input and suggestions. The newsletter has not changed a great deal over the past couple of years; it is 4-6 pages, usually one issue each month, and content has included noteworthy accomplishments of faculty and graduate students, faculty profiles (and their own tips on writing) awards, new faculty, new course offerings, news about publications, readings or other events, informal polls of students about favorite authors / books, etc. There is usually a clever “literary” quote and a list of author birthdays on the cover, and a themed crossword on the back (completed crosswords are entered for a prize, usually a book relating to the crossword theme).

I’m thinking I want to include an inset with upcoming conferences of note, but I’m unsure of what else to add—I want to hear what clever suggestions you all might have for me. I’ll have fairly wide latitude with content, and the content will dictate layout. It’s simple, follows formal conventions, and is conversational and friendly in tone.

What cool or clever ideas might you have for me?

E-mail Newsletters Auto-Populated Via RSS

MaxVonCretin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:53:03 -0800

Can anyone recommend a hosted newsletter delivery service (like ConstantContact.com) that offers the ability to automatically import headlines and links from RSS feeds into HTML e-mail newsletter templates? Or some other mechanism whereby I can use a feed to eliminate the need to manually assemble website update newsletters? Yes, I know that Feedburner will e-mail feeds, but Feedburner does not offer enough flexibility in customizing the e-mail template (no branding, non-feed content, etc.)

Any tips appreciated.

What do I need if I want to put out a newsletter but I don't have any infrastructure?

croutonsupafreak — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 23:34:38 -0800

What would it take to print a few thousand sheets of paper every other day while completely off the grid? I will have no access to any electricity or supplies, except those that I bring with me. I've got a laptop and a camera. I need a printer.

Will a consumer-grade laser printer with a new toner cartridge be sufficient? Is there a better choice for making lots of copies? How do I power the printer and laptop for a few hours each day, and keep the camera charged? Do I need a full-fledged generator for this? Is a battery a better choice? How much is this sort of thing going to cost? Anything else I should consider?

Help finding a farming resources newsletter

NormandyJack — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:55:59 -0800

Help me find a PDF farming newsletter I came across a week or two ago. I just don't have enough details to find this with google.

I'm looking for a newsletter/publication. Here's what I (think I) remember.

This issue was geared towards new farmers (and listed numerous resources for them) but according to its description it is not always directed at new farmers.
It was published by an acronymized organization (i.e. NFO, USDA, ???).
It is presumably a monthly or quarterly publication.
Non-black text and accents were primarily brown, green and gray.
I think the last page or two was a regional list of resources (addresses and whatnot).
As far as I know, it was new when I found it, so it is presumably an October issue.

Anyone know what I was talking about.

Help me name my newsletter?

gnossos — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:29:07 -0800

Can you help me create a name for my newsletter? I will be starting a weekly newsletter to summarize economic events and make stock investing recommendations. It will be very data driven and analytical, using some unique analysis. The front page will be an in-depth analysis of the markets in general, the remaining pages will be dedicated to the analysis of individual stocks that have interesting price patterns. Lots of charts.

Here are the lame ideas for a name I have created thus far:
Weekly Analyst
Crunch Times
Market Weekly
Investor's Weekly Analysis

So dull.

Can you help me find a more creative newsletter name?

newsletter editing/sending?

signal — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 09:33:48 -0800

What's a good newsletter creating / sending application (either on- or offline) that's cheap, easy to use and customizable? A client needs to send an (opt-in, not looking to spam anybody) newsletter. I'd like to be able to set it up so they can edit it with little or no handholding. I'd also like to be able to design a custom template so it looks like their website (they're picky that way).

I've been looking at Emma, and it looks fairly easy to use, but I have 2 big problems with it: 1] it doesn't seem to have a Spanish version or non-ascii character support yet ("with full international-character support arriving in early 2009.") and 2] its USD$250 signup plus $30 per 1000 emails is kind of pricey.

The client's employees who'd handle this are not technical or designers, so the editing should be simple and non-technical and with a locked down template system. Something like a blog.

Cheap, good & easy suggestions? Online of offline is fine as long as it's easy to use and customize. There should be no added lines like "This email sent by wazzoo emailer, get your own website here!!!!".

Our e-newsletter script went broke... need help!

(bb|[^b]{2}) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:39:44 -0800

PHP List is borked, and our e-newsletter was supposed to go out this morning! Does anyone have suggestions for a similar online e-newsletter management system (preferably free or ultra-inexpensive)? Here's the downlow:

- Subscription list of roughly 2,000
- We send our newsletter once a week
- Nothing fancy, just a script that sends in basic HTML and plain text (if the client doesn't support the latter)
- We don't want something that runs as an app, we like it being hosted and run off our server

PHP List was working great, but it suddenly stopped doing so about an hour ago. I think it's time for us to part ways. Any suggestions would be great!

Simple Wordpress Newsletter plugin

FidelDonson — Wed, 07 May 2008 01:37:13 -0800

Recommendations for a wordpress newsletter plugin. Google only seems to find the all-encompassing plugins. All i really need is a plugin that makes it possible for users to subscribe and unsubscribe and for the admins to export a list of current subscribers.

Free crosswords for small newsletters?

thecjm — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 10:06:18 -0800

I'm putting together a company newsletter and am looking for freely licensed and printable crossword and sudoku puzzles that I could put in the newsletter. I've seen plenty of links here and elsewhere to good web-based crosswords and even crossword generation software, but I'm looking for something freely available to use (my budget on this is $0), printable (or even better, something I can copy&paste so I can drop it right in my publishing software), and premade (I don't want to spend valuable time working these things up, and the thought of a company-themed crossword makes me cringe). Any leads or ideas? Also, the same but for Sudoku?

The magazine of today about The House Of Tomorrow

Asparagirl — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:09:52 -0800

Know of any magazines, periodicals, or newsletters dealing with Mid-Century Modernism, particularly home furnishings and interior design? I've only been able to find one regular magazine out there -- "Atomic Ranch", published quarterly. But there must be others...right? I mean, the Arts and Crafts movement has at least three bimonthly-or-more magazines devoted to it ("Style 1900", "American Bungalow", etc.), so I'm surprised that there seems to be so little out there for the more modern stuff.

A newsletter by any other name induces cringing...

Unicorn on the cob — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:51:05 -0800

I am working on branding a newsletter that will offer love advice, statistics, and bites of information related to dating in general, online dating and relationships. What's a clever (but not cringeworthy) name for it? Other options for the content include links to a featured dater, new books (previous examples include The Mystery Method and What Shamu Taught Me...), services (such as a professional profile rewriting service) and polls. So far, all I've got is "Love Bites". This brought out the response "uh, as in A HICKEY?" from one friend.

Bonus if the title/concept contains the word "happen". Thank you in advance for any wisdom you can impart!

How to handle "No Solitation" signs...

Mrs. Smith — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 12:21:09 -0800

No solicitation signs... I'm starting a new business, publishing a newsletter that will be distributed freely to local businesses that they can give to their customers while waiting on appointments, meals, etc. It is supported by advertising, so I'm not really asking for anything other than to place the newsletters in their establishments at no cost to them. I am not asking these businesses for advertising revenue or sales.

I'm not sure how to handle businesses that have "No Solicitation" signs, though. I know some of the business owners, so I don't really hesitate with those, but it's the ones that I don't know that I'm questioning. I think it is something that they would really like once they saw it, but I don't want to offend them by asking--or waste my time or theirs.

Opinions?

TIA!

Newsletter Name Help

Ambrosia Voyeur — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 10:14:15 -0800

Help me title the internal company newsletter! I'm responsible for the design and layout of an internal newsletter for my 30-40 person company. The newsletter is lighthearted in tone, with candid photos and community events as well as departmental updates to inform everyone what projects and developments are underway in departments they're uninvolved in. Everybody's too busy to really care what we call the darn thing, but I need something in the masthead. I need an innocuous but zippy title.

Say the company is called Jackson Financial Management, or JFM. (Names have been changed, but that's the format of the name.)

It's a third party money management business, which means it's the finance industry, so any money/investment puns are good. We have just passed one billion under management, a major milestone.

I'm not interested in rhymes or puns on the actual name, since it's actually the name of our President and founder, and that would be weird.

It's a rather posh company. They pamper us all with lots of fun perks. The expressed style of our employee group is what I think of as basically California wine country bourgeois. (No, I don't really fit in.) We've only recently stopped having drinking celebrations during work.

We're located right near the beach, and surfing/flipflops culture is pretty ingrained here. Little dress code in effect.

The newsletter will hopefully be distributed quarterly or so, but it's pretty flexible.

Help! I'm totally drawing a blank!

Best way to set up a distribution list via Outlook

wile e — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 04:16:29 -0800

Outlook mailing lists. I know how to set up group mailings via the distribution lists under File>New, but I'm not sure what the limitations are. I have a newsletter that needs to go out to hundreds of people. Is there a way to do this efficiently? Also how will my ISP/mail server handle the mass amount of emails? I know some will only allow x amount of emails at a time to prevent spamming. So would I have to set up some kind of scheduling where they go out at different intervals? Any other tips or suggestions greatly appreciated. Technical specs are Windows XP machine, using Outlook 2003 but have access to 2007 if that improves anything. The mail is set up as pop3 via a 1and1.com hosted website. I would call 1and1 but as I have recently found out, their tech support staff are not the most helpful.

Best arts newsletters?

j.s.f. — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 14:29:26 -0800

What are the best arts/culture newsletters for Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Timbuktu...? I'm not sure if it's an Anglophone thing, but New York and London have no shortage of e-mail/RSS-based newsletters announcing openings, concerts, and other things that a culture-oriented city person might want to know. They rarely announce super-secret insider stuff, but you get better and more timely coverage than in the papers.

Recently I've thought that it'd be good to check out one of these newsletters before I go traveling to whatever city's on my agenda--particularly Paris, which I visit far too often, but really all other big towns. Any tips on what to subscribe to?

PS: Whether it's in English or the native language is of minor importance to me; it's the listings that count.

Mail Merge Woes

wavering — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 06:16:11 -0800

How do I address a few hundred newletters from a mailing database? I have an 11x17 graphical newsletter, and 1/4th of one side of it is destined for an address. How can I take this file from InDesign and merge it with a mailing database so I can have the address automatically added and printed when I run these off?

Help me help people send newsletters

bristolcat — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 08:03:45 -0800

What is a good program for sending a corporate newsletter to clients and sales reps? I need a program that's easy-to-use, free or cheap and yields professional results. High expectations, I know, but here is my story.

My company currently has a program called MailThem Pro. This works fine, but the catch is you basically have to embed a html file into the e-mail. This means building a website to serve as the newsletter. This in turn means that I have to train every person who does it how to use Dreamweaver and html skills. I feel there must be an easier, faster way to do this.

The person who manages the newsletter is new to the company and doesn't know anything about websites. The employees who managed it before used Dreamweaver, but as the turnover rate in that particular position is quite high, I've had to train about three people to use Dreamweaver in the last few years. They never totally understood it and I always felt that our newsletter looked poor and unprofessional. And now I'm faced with either training this person Dreamweaver (version 4) or finding a new solution. Another catch: I'm physically leaving the company to telecommute come next week.

The newsletter is a simple templated e-mail with a bar running down the left side which contains email addresses, dates and other small items. The content area contains news updates. It has a circulation of about 300.

What's the best solution for me? I searched the archives and there are some posts, but from at least two years ago. There might be something better out there now, hopefully. Please help! Thanks!

Pimp my newsletter

ukdanae — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 05:15:07 -0800

Looking for hosted newsletter software that goes beyond Campaign Monitor I'm looking to build a newsletter that goes along with my blog, but have a few very specific requirements that take me out of the typical realm of Campaign Monitor / Constant Contact. I've been canvassing the field for days trying to find what I need, but can't quite find it yet. I was hoping someone with more experience in this area could help out.

I need all the obvious stuff like good reporting, etc., but there are two "killer" features that are proving problematic:

*An RSS-to-email functionality like Feedburner or Feedblitz provides, but integrated together with my newsletter so subscribers will only have to sign up once.

*Unlimited list segmentation for multiple kinds of fields -- i.e. drop down, check boxes, etc., not just plain text fields.

Intellicontact nearly fits the bill but their segmentation options are really weak and won't get the job done (they only have open text fields and checkboxes). I'd like a hosted solution. Price is important (i.e. i can't afford StrongMail), but i'd just be happy to find any provider that can fulfill these requirements.

Thanks for any help!

How can I unsubscribe from American Public Media's e-mail newsletters?

cmyers — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 15:25:47 -0800

I'm currently subscribed to, and wish to unsubscribe from, American Public Media's "Speaking of Faith" and "Writer's Almanac" e-mail newsletters. Neither APM's site nor the newsletters themselves seem to offer an unsubscribe function. I even e-mailed APM several months ago to request that I be removed from their mailing list, but haven't heard back. Short of adding APM to my ISP's or mail client's spam filter, how can I stop these newsletters?

app for newsletter sending

signal — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:55:22 -0800

Need software to send an opt-in newsletter: What software should I use to send out a simple newsletter to a list of like 1000 subscribers?

Need to send simple mail, text plus some links, maybe a logo, nothing fancy.
Have list in text file.
Would rather not use an online service, as I don't want to give them the suscriber list, and don't want any adlines added on, and am a control freak.
On windows XP, with a DSL connection.
I am reasonably handy with a computer, some light programming, have Cygwin installed, etc.
Free is nice, as we don't have any financing

Looking for user-friendly newsletter software

ootsocsid — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:13:00 -0800

Looking for extremely user-friendly newsletter software... A friend of mine is working for a non-profit organization, and her boss is looking for very user-friendly software for creating a newsletter:

"My director is looking to start his own newsletter, but needs something VERY user friendly to do so. He tried MS Publisher and was frustrated by it. So I was wondering if any of you have suggestions for easy to use, plop in the content, kind of publishing programs."

Any suggestions?

Can I make money off of a "newsletter"?

allthewhile — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 18:45:29 -0800

moneyfilter! I have a website that I started a while back hoping to "monetize". Well, I got lazy, and gave up. I was going to start a newsletter in conjunction with the site and never got around to it. But someone found the site, and the newsletter sign up page, and wants to distribute it to their clients (it relates to their brick and mortar business). The company seems legit. Can I turn this into a business opportunity? My website and the newsletter are concerning "home safety". Here's a copy of the email I recieved through my "contact me" page:

----------
Website: titleserv.com
Message: I am looking for a general newsletter to send to individuals who have used our title insurance company.

I would also make attorney's aware of the opportunity as well.

Please let me know if your material can be passed along for this purpose and if you have any reservations or requirements regarding it's use.

Thank you
Pete Smith
---------

Should I start writing the newsletter regularly and charge a few to distribute it to his clients? How would you procede? Is it worth it?

He may be just looking for a free ride.

I'm interested in home safety and wouldn't mind continuing the site and doing a newsletter regularly, but am not sure if I could make it work to my advantage.

How do I share a newsletter online securely in PDF?

plumberonkarst — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 22:56:37 -0800

What is any easy way to securely share a newsletter online to my fellow club members?This would entail 100 members downloading 20-30 mb newsletters quarterly. I just became editor for my caving club and for a couple of reasons I want to start making the PDF available online to the members. The newsletter will still be sent out in a print version but if the PDF downloads are well received, I may be able to convert to that method fully.

Can I run a FTP on my own system and is that secure if viable? Would I have to make a webpage to use a FTP? At the very least I only need the download url and the club logo. The newsletters have information on cave locations so we DO NOT want the general public accessing them.I was going to try to use one of the online free services but I was concerned about security.

Thank for any replies

Doug