Email/Hosting/DNN/Aweber Life Solution Needed ...
OK, so this is dominating my life and I don't know which way to turn/what to decide.... informed help for my decision making is invited.
Background:
3 years ago I wanted a CMS, I looked around and picked DotNetNuke. So, I started building my site with DNN and the site became popular quickly, but the system was a pig to run. One of the main reasons to pick DNN was I wanted users to register and it did that. So I had a member list - of 18,000 de-duped members, double opt-in and verified.
Last Week:
Roll on 3 years and I have a substantial member list that have NEVER been emailed ... why? .... because DNN was unwieldy and when you forget your username/password you are asked for your username so your password can be emailed ... I wanted to be able to email people to say "Hey, come back ... your username is ...." If I just emailed them, they'd not remember their username and so that is a useless system. So I never got round to solving the problem/never got round to emailing anybody.
Then I found a bulk email module for DNN that looked like it would solve my problem. So I paid the host to upgrade my DNN to the latest version, installed the Bulk Email programme and thought my problems were over.
This Weekend:
I spent 16 hours on Saturday installing the bulk emailer, setting it all up, testing it, writing a very basic email to every member in my member list to say "Hey, come to my site ... your username is ....". While not the best approach in the world I did this to [a] test the software worked [b] at least initiate a regular series of mailings.
At 2am I had finished and pressed SEND. I watched it for the next 24 hours as it slowly ... and painfully .... very very slowly .... emailed through my list .... When it had reached just over 3000 I contacted my host and asked "Hey - is there a cap on my email account?" they logged a helpdesk call and I went to sleep, sure that when I woke up I'd have the answer/it'd be fixed. I woke up and .... logged on ... 100% complete! Hurrah - so I looked. It had sent out under 3200 emails. Host had halted my emailing and told me to use their Email List Manager software instead. Bummer. So now I had a list that had been part-mailed, so I couldn't immediately start mailing them again (it would take 6 days to get through the whole list at 150/hour).
AWeber:
So, I have an aweber account that I have paid for for 3 years, but never managed to use because ... it never worked with DNN. People registered with DNN first, then it was supposed to show the aweber registration, but aweber interface said over 12,000 people had seen that page and 0 had signed up... unbelievable, so I'd taken it off a few months back.
So I started looking at Aweber. It seems for a list the size of mine it would cost a lot more than I currently pay ... and it would take me nearly 2 weeks to import my current list.
New Host:
The company that provide the DNN emailing software I first started to use offered their hosting and unlimited SMTP access to send out all my emails, but they don't have 24/7 support and Live Help (which my current host do).
Overall:
I don't even like DNN, but am stuck with it because the site ranks highly on google and is too much of a major part of my income to muck around with it.
Questions:
How the heck do I start to email my list of members to try to get them to come back to my site?
a] Current Host: Pay them extra and use their email list manager (not sure how that works and how manual that would be to set up/run)
b] Aweber: Pay extra and spend two weeks getting the existing list onto Aweber, then buy a separate solution (Dynamic Forms 2.7?) to plug in that automates the sign up to aweber process - although Dynamic Forms isn't easy to get information about, I might be out of my depth setting it up
c] New Host: Change hosts to another continent to a host with inadequate support cover, but they will let me send out my emails uncapped using their great email DNN module. This company wrote the good email module I am trialling.
d] Something Else: Am I missing something here? Is there a blindingly obvious answer?
I just want the problem to go away... all I want to do is bl00dy email my members... and it's been 3 years yet and I've not solved this problem.
Skills: No techie skills, general IT background but no programming, no asp.net, no windows server experience and no desire to learn.
Budget: Poor, prepared to invest a fair amount in a 100% easy solution.
Thanking you in anticipation.
Background:
3 years ago I wanted a CMS, I looked around and picked DotNetNuke. So, I started building my site with DNN and the site became popular quickly, but the system was a pig to run. One of the main reasons to pick DNN was I wanted users to register and it did that. So I had a member list - of 18,000 de-duped members, double opt-in and verified.
Last Week:
Roll on 3 years and I have a substantial member list that have NEVER been emailed ... why? .... because DNN was unwieldy and when you forget your username/password you are asked for your username so your password can be emailed ... I wanted to be able to email people to say "Hey, come back ... your username is ...." If I just emailed them, they'd not remember their username and so that is a useless system. So I never got round to solving the problem/never got round to emailing anybody.
Then I found a bulk email module for DNN that looked like it would solve my problem. So I paid the host to upgrade my DNN to the latest version, installed the Bulk Email programme and thought my problems were over.
This Weekend:
I spent 16 hours on Saturday installing the bulk emailer, setting it all up, testing it, writing a very basic email to every member in my member list to say "Hey, come to my site ... your username is ....". While not the best approach in the world I did this to [a] test the software worked [b] at least initiate a regular series of mailings.
At 2am I had finished and pressed SEND. I watched it for the next 24 hours as it slowly ... and painfully .... very very slowly .... emailed through my list .... When it had reached just over 3000 I contacted my host and asked "Hey - is there a cap on my email account?" they logged a helpdesk call and I went to sleep, sure that when I woke up I'd have the answer/it'd be fixed. I woke up and .... logged on ... 100% complete! Hurrah - so I looked. It had sent out under 3200 emails. Host had halted my emailing and told me to use their Email List Manager software instead. Bummer. So now I had a list that had been part-mailed, so I couldn't immediately start mailing them again (it would take 6 days to get through the whole list at 150/hour).
AWeber:
So, I have an aweber account that I have paid for for 3 years, but never managed to use because ... it never worked with DNN. People registered with DNN first, then it was supposed to show the aweber registration, but aweber interface said over 12,000 people had seen that page and 0 had signed up... unbelievable, so I'd taken it off a few months back.
So I started looking at Aweber. It seems for a list the size of mine it would cost a lot more than I currently pay ... and it would take me nearly 2 weeks to import my current list.
New Host:
The company that provide the DNN emailing software I first started to use offered their hosting and unlimited SMTP access to send out all my emails, but they don't have 24/7 support and Live Help (which my current host do).
Overall:
I don't even like DNN, but am stuck with it because the site ranks highly on google and is too much of a major part of my income to muck around with it.
Questions:
How the heck do I start to email my list of members to try to get them to come back to my site?
a] Current Host: Pay them extra and use their email list manager (not sure how that works and how manual that would be to set up/run)
b] Aweber: Pay extra and spend two weeks getting the existing list onto Aweber, then buy a separate solution (Dynamic Forms 2.7?) to plug in that automates the sign up to aweber process - although Dynamic Forms isn't easy to get information about, I might be out of my depth setting it up
c] New Host: Change hosts to another continent to a host with inadequate support cover, but they will let me send out my emails uncapped using their great email DNN module. This company wrote the good email module I am trialling.
d] Something Else: Am I missing something here? Is there a blindingly obvious answer?
I just want the problem to go away... all I want to do is bl00dy email my members... and it's been 3 years yet and I've not solved this problem.
Skills: No techie skills, general IT background but no programming, no asp.net, no windows server experience and no desire to learn.
Budget: Poor, prepared to invest a fair amount in a 100% easy solution.
Thanking you in anticipation.
-
n7 Studios -
[ 1 ] Thanks
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