Electronic mail (e-mail)a system whereby a computer user can exchange messages and files with other computer users (or groups of users) via a communications networkis one of the most popular uses of the Internet. This facet of the Net was
one of the first applied uses and continues to be a powerful communications tool.
By collecting viewers' names and e-mail addresses (in addition to other information) at your site, you can develop an e-mail mailing list. You can also develop this list by requesting this information on service calls, product registration postcards,
sales calls, via online forms, and so on. Basically, think of an e-mail address the same way you do a phone numberas necessary information.
Why would you want to do this? To save money and trees (among other things). How do you do that? By converting much of your existing direct mail and print campaigns to an e-mail campaign. There are many advantages to using e-mail over print, some of
which are
So the first step in developing your own e-mail list is to get the viewer to fill out an online form. You could do this by simply asking viewers to fill out your online form to be added to your mailing list. But if you want to develop a large list, you
need to entice the viewers a bit more. They may need some "What's in it for me?" incentive. Some options that work are
Figure 14.1. The viewer needs a "What's in it for me?" incentive.
So, are you ready? Let's do it!
The goal of this project is to provide a form to collect information for use in our mailing list. For taking the time to do this, we will reward viewers with free information. After the viewers fill out the online form and click the Submit button, we
want an HTML page to load, letting them know we received their form and thanking them for their time. In addition, we want our information to be e-mailed to them automatically. We also want the information they provide to be sent to our own e-mail box.
There are four separate files we must create for this form system:
The code for the HTML form is shown in Listing 14.1.
Listing 14.1. The code for our HTML form.
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 3.0//EN" "html.dtd"> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>Feedback Form</TITLE> <!-- Author: Kim and Brad Hampton --> </HEAD> <BGCOLOR="FFFFFF" TEXT="000000" LINK="425AFF" VLINK="0018C4" ALINK="FFFFFF"> <H1>Please fill out this form to receive your free information</H1> <P> <FORM ACTION="/cgi-bin/formmail.pl" METHOD=POST> <INPUT TYPE="hidden" name="recipient" value="hampton@ha.net"> <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="subject" VALUE="Free Information"> <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="redirect" VALUE="http://www.ha.net/thanks.htm"> <INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="replyfile" VALUE="info.txt"> <DT>Your Name: <DD><input type=text name="realname" size=30> <DT>Your E-mail Address: <DD><input type=text name="e-mail" size=30> <DT>Your Company Name: <DD><input type=text name="Company" size=30> <DT>Your Phone: <DD><input type=text name="Phone" size=30> <DT>Mailing Address: <DD><INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="address" size=30> <DT>City: <DD><INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="city" size=30> <DT>State: <DD><INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="state" size=2> <DT>Zip Code: <DD><INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="zip" size=10> <DT>Country (if other than US): <DD><INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="country" size=20> <DT>Any comments, questions, or suggestions?: <DD><TEXTAREA name="comments" cols=27 rows=4></TEXTAREA> <P> </DL></I> <DT><DD><input type=submit value="Send This Form"> <input type=reset value="Start Over"> <P> </FORM> <HR> Please note: Although it is most unlikely that you will experience any problems responding to this form, certain non-standard browsers will not respond properly. If you experience any difficulties, (or if you are not using a forms-capable browser) you may e-mail your response to this form to: <a href="mailto:hampton@ha.net">hampton@ha.net</A>. </BODY> </HTML>
All of this code should look pretty familiar (if it doesn't, refer to Chapter 11, "Integrating HTML with CGI">Chapter 11, "Integrating HTML with CGI"). There are just a couple new commands.
The first is
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="subject" VALUE="Free Information">
This just means the subject of the e-mail sent to us will read "Free Information."
The next,
<INPUT TYPE="hidden" NAME="replyfile" VALUE="info.txt">,
is saying to send the file "info.txt" to the viewer as a reply to this form.
Now we need the CGI script that will decode this form. We'll again use formmail.pl, the same script discussed in Chapter 11 (included on your CD-ROM).
Next we need the information that will be mailed to the viewer. Since our information is pretty small, we will make this an attached TXT file. If our file was large, we might need to offer the information in a different format (or several different
formats), since files will often be divided (or even bounced) by an e-mail program or server if they are too large.
The HTML redirect page is just a simple HTML page thanking the viewer for filling out the form (refer to Chapter 11 to see the code for this page).
And here's how it works: The viewer clicks on the feedback link from the home page and arrives at our HTML form. They fill out the form (Figure 14.2) and click the Send The Form button.
Figure 14.2. How a viewer fills out this form example.
The form is submitted, and the viewer jumps to the thank you page (See Figure 10.6 in Chapter 11). At the same time, the informational text file we promised is forwarded to the viewer's e-mail box.
By now the form contents have arrived in our e-mail box. We can at this point manually cut and paste the information into a database (or some kind of text file) or we could import these responses directly into a database for use as sales leads. (For
information on how to do this, see Chapter 13, "Databases and Searches.")
In our form example we set up the system to automatically send the viewer a specific e-mail. This function can also be achieved by an autoresponder (often referred to as a mailbot). An autoresponder is a software program that distributes files or
information in response to requests sent via e-mail.
There are many ISP and specialized companies that provide autoresponder services (such as in Figure 14.3)your ISP may be one of them. These services are usually inexpensive and will save you lots of time. A list of some of these companies is
provided at
http://www.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Companies/Computers/Software/Communications_and_Networking
/Electronic_Mail/Autoresponders/
Figure 14.3. An autoresponder service.
Now, if you're thinking "All this autoresponding sounds neat, but I don't think I need it," you're probably right. If you only receive a small amount of e-mail requesting information, you could easily just send the information manually. This
not only simplifies things (for a limited amount of requests), but it also forces you to read through your responses more thoroughly and quickly, which your viewers will appreciate, and allows you to add a personal touch.
It's this simple:
Now you have all those e-mail addresses! What you do with them is up to you, but we suggest setting up a mass mailing. Some simple ways to do this are discussed in the next section.
You are probably familiar with mass mailing. This is when you send the same information to an entire list of people. Mass e-mailing does the same thing, but does so with the speed and efficiency of e-mail. One example of the advantage mass e-mail has
over direct mail is in the case of a catalog.
Suppose you had a list of, oh, let's say widget users. Traditionally, you might send a business reply card to these people, offering them a free catalog (as sending each person a catalog right off would be too expensive). You incur the printing,
mailing, and return mail costs for the cards, and then must print and ship the catalog to those that request it.
Now, if you do this all electronically, you can simply send an e-mail to each person on your list, giving them the URL of your new catalog site. You can probably imagine the cost savings.
How do you send a mass e-mailing? There are at least two options: a listserver and an ordinary e-mail program (Eudora, MS mail, and so on). The option you choose depends mostly upon the size of your list. If you have a small distribution list, you can
avoid using a listserver and can skip to the Quick and Dirty Guide in this chapter, "Cheapskate Mail Delivery." If your list is large, however, a listserver is your best bet.
The three main practical differences between these approaches are as follows:
Listserv is an automated mailing list distribution system originally designed for the BITNET/EARN network. Listserv sends a list of e-mail addresses to something called a "mail exploder" (part of an electronic mail delivery system that
enables the delivery of a message to a list of addresses). The mail exploder works like this: You send messages to a single address, and the mail exploder takes care of delivering the message to each of the individual mailboxes in the list you've provided.
If you are interested in using a listserver, your first stop should be at your virtual host (if you have one). Many hosts offer use of their listserver, and provide this service free of charge or for a small additional fee. If you have no luck, there
are many companies, like the one shown in Figure 14.4, that offer this service for a feea couple that we have found are Internet Tools Inc. (http://www.internet-tools.com/it_html/mail_list.html) and L-Soft International, Inc. (http://www.lsoft.com/ease-head.html).
Figure 14.4. A listserv service.
Setting up a mass mailing using a listserver can also be a do-it-yourself project, and there is already good information available at
http://www.earn.net/lug/notice.html.
One option for sending out a mass e-mailing is to use the same e-mail program you always use. Many e-mail programs have this capability, two of the more popular being Eudora Light and Microsoft Exchange. This is a simple option if your mailing list is
short.
So let's get started. The goal for this project is to send an e-mail to a list of 20 recipients, informing them that we are having a sale on an item for which they have previously requested information (widgets). First, you must choose the e-mail
program you would like to use for this project. Read on if you plan to use Eudora Light; skip ahead to "Using MS Exchange for Mass E-mailing" if you plan to use Microsoft Exchange.
Figure 14.5. The Eudora home site.
You'll notice that the To: line includes not only the address of this recipient, but of all the recipients on our mailing list. This is one of the reasons we don't recommend this method when sending to a large mailing list.
Figure 14.10. Typing the e-mail and clicking the To: button.
In this chapter you have
In this chapter, we've addressed a way to open communication to new customers. In the next chapter, "Customer Service Online," we discuss communication with existing customers.