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Need advice on how to manage paid e-mail subscription newsletter

by adum
5 replies
Hey warriors,

I am in the process of creating a paid monthly subscription newsletter for my website.

I am going to be doing a physical mailed newsletter for people in the States, but for my international friends that is not an option because of the shipping time (the information contained in the newsletters will be somewhat time sensitive).

Because of this, I am thinking that I will collect the e-mails of all international subscribers and e-mail them an encrypted/protected PDF of the newsletter.

What I am trying to figure out is what is the best way to go about this...I will need to do either one of two things:

1. Send the PDF as an attachment
2. Send a special download link within the e-mail to download the PDF

This is tricky just because it's going to be a monthly thing, not like an instant 1 time download purchase.

Can I do this type of thing with 1ShoppingCart? I know you can keep an e-mail list with them, but will they let me upload the PDF and make a special download link in the e-mail for each subscriber?

Right now I am thinking of just using straight up Paypal and do the subscription button to get people in the system and manually do everything myself (manually e-mail international people the PDF).

I guess I also need a service to protect the PDFs.

I'll stop here...I've written too much already. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Adam

EDIT: It's looking like watchdox.com and protectedpdf.com may offer the kind of services I need...mainly to send protected PDF files to a mailing list.
#advice #email #manage #newsletter #paid #subscription
  • Profile picture of the author wsylvester
    One option is to create a download link from a members area of your site. Then email out the link with a monthly password. While not optimal this means a subscriber would need access to the file and that months password. Change the password on the pdf monthly. In time you can buy a more sophisticated system like Zinio or other distribution platform with supported client that could protect on a user by user basis.
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    • Profile picture of the author reimagine
      One option is to set up a Wordpress-based membership site using the "Wishlist Member" plug-in ... it integrates with 1SC or PayPal and will turn off a members access if their payment doesn't go through. Then you can send everyone to a link where they log in to download the PDF. (and if they haven't paid, their login won't work)
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  • Profile picture of the author KathyK
    Just a note - as an American, I'd really rather have the pdf too - why should I have to wait a week for my physical copy to get there when people in China could get it the same day?: :confused:

    Send them all pdfs unless you have a few that really MUST have print. Should save you a bit of time.
    Signature

    Cheers,
    Kathy

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  • Profile picture of the author trek3d
    You could also consider setting up a members area with aMember Membership software - aMember Pro

    You could set up a membership product through aMember. A user could sign up, create a username and password, and be taken to PayPal to sign up for a recurring monthly membership. The user could then be redirected back to the members area.

    To set up the members area, you specify a directory, or directories on your website that members can access, and you can use aMember to password protect this directory or these directories. You could put a WordPress website in this directory, or you could put HTML files in this directory. You can put your PDF's in this directory or you can put them in another directory and use aMember to password protect that directory as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author rife
    phpMailer is a simple to use but very powerfull php class. It allows for attachments and html emails. Basically, your requirements can be satisfied using this free class along side a few hours of php programming to utilise it.

    sourceforge.net/projects/phpmailer/
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