Recently, a client of ours needed mass mailing capability. Nothing
fancy, just the ability to send original messages and existing nodes to
a large list of email addresses. No token replacement, no click through
tracking. Just get the word out.
We contracted with Allie Micka to create a suite of modules that would
handle not only this discrete needs but other sending needs of this, and
other clients.
Ingredients:
Drupal 4.7
Mime Mail
http://drupal.org/node/37911
Mailing List Manager
http://drupal.org/node/44580
Send
http://drupal.org/project/send
News
http://drupal.org/node/45616
Once you have your Drupal 4.7 Site up and running install the additional
modules above (follow the instructions for each module).
Mime mail lets drupal send out HTML formated messages to users. The
messages are MIME encoded and can share the style/theme of your website
Mailing List Manager allows you to connect Drupal to a mailing list
through a plugable back end. The only currently supported Mailing
Lists are EZMLM, but others back ends can be created. This module
allows a single point for users to manage mailing list subscriptions.
Send adds "Tell-A-Friend" functionality to any node. It also writes the
sending activity to CiviCRM if CiviCRM is installed (recording the node
that is sent, who it is sent by and who it is sent to).
News makes use of all of the above. News allows you to send a node,
with a custom preface message to an email list, and leverages Mime Mail,
Mailing List Manager and Send.
There are a ton of configuration settings because the permissions and
preferences for Send and News can be set on a node type level and on a
node by node level. In the screen cast that follows, i will walk
through some of the settings, and demonstrate the functionality of this
recipe!
