Create and manage your own web newsletter

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Written by Danilo Silva

Sunday, 09 December 2007

I've found a great hosted opensource program to create and manage your own email subscriber's list. In my opinion, much better than phplist. Here are the instructions for installation, setup and sending emails.

Pommo is an opensource program I've found to be extremely simple to install on your own web server so you can start managing your own newsletter. The other alternative, also opensource, is phplist but I left this option after struggling with its installation and setup. Pommo's UI is clean and nicely organized. Everything is simple and easy to configure, phplist had so many different settings and options something always went wrong. With Pommo I was all set to go in about 15 minutes.

Important: first check whether your server has php +4.3.2 and MySQL + 4.1.11.

How to install?

Download Pommo's latest release;
Extract the downloaded files on your computer (I prefer to use 7zip for this task);
Open the file config.sample.php, and enter the information about your website and server setup;
Save the config.sample.php as config.php;
Create Pommo DB on your MySQL. Be sure that the information you set here is the same as it was written on the config.php file;
Transfer the contents of Pommo's root folder to your server (through ftp) ;
Open your browser and go to the location you installed Pommo (for example, www.mywebsite.com/pommo) and follow the instructions to finish the installation.

Right after you install it, Pommo will have a Demo configuration, which does not allow you to send any message. This is good so you can start learning about the program and not be concerned about sending a bad email. To take Pommo out of Demo mode, just go the the Setup area.

How to configure?

With your web browser, go to the area where Pommo was installed (ie. www.mywebsite.com/pommo). Type in your login and password;
On the main screen, start with Setup - Configure;
Setup information about the admin, name of the list, URLs, information about the email account you'll use to send emails from, and last, see and change the automated messages sent to new users;
Afterwards, go back to Setup and choose Subscriber Fields. Here you will configure the information you want to extract from your users. Create a specific field for each information you want (city, state, company, etc.);
Last but not least, go to Settings - Subscription Form to configure your subscription page or you can choose to create a form you can embed on a html page.

How to manage your subscribers list?

Go to Subscribers to add or remove subscribers to your list or create specific groups to send targeted messages.
You can add subscribers manually by uploading a ".csv" document or you can write the emails manually. A note, with me only ".csv" files from OpenOffice worked (not with MS Office).

How to send emails?

Go to Mailings - Send to configure the message you'll send.
First, on the Setup tab, write your email address and the subject of the email.
On the first run, skip the Templates tab but later, if you want you can create a template email to automatically load next time you're sending a message.
In the Compose tab, write your message. Pommo has its own editor or you can do as I do and write everything on Google Docs and paste it here.
After everything is ready, you can send your message to a specific group ou to everyone on the list. If you prefer, send a test email before sending it to everyone just to make sure weblinks and formatting are all correct.