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Advice, please
Lyn Chase:
Hi friends,
Eric and I are still trying to figure out how to do a mass mailing to the SpiritWars community. Randy had a database of about 22,000 e-mail addresses and we would like to get the word about the forum out to them, but we are technologically challenged. I found a program on the internet called Send Blaster. Does anyone know about that one? Is there a better one? Is there a better way? We don't have time to enter all those addresses into a program by hand. I'm hoping we can copy and paste them in.
The sooner we get the word out, the sooner we can start planning how to get SpiritWars back up and running.
It was programmed primarily in Visual Basic. Should we try to have it redone in Java? Or another language? Any advice you have for us will be greatly appreciated!
Thank you all for being here.
Love,
Lyn
ekoms:
I'm available to help anytime. I know you mentioned having them come from an @spiritwars.com address, but did you ever find out about your host's abilities? Just let me know what else I can do to help?
Minmaxer:
My previous place of employment used a program called Gammadyne to send bulk emails. I have never used Send Blaster, but I imagine it has a similar features. This is probably the easiest approach. Send Blaster may allow you connect directly to the database, otherwise, it might require you to transfer the data to an excel sheet or something similar. The other thing you are going to need is some kind of short form letter. The program should allow you to insert other fields from the database directly into the email body to customize the letter to each person. Some people are going to be wary about this email being a spam/fishing attempt. To avoid this I suggest adding a couple of lines to the email to refresh their memory of Spiritwars as well as including their username and the date of their last active membership or something similar. The program should also allow you to specify a "from" address for the email. You'll have to decide whether you want to use a "real" address, if you don't you should mention in the email that responses will not be read.
Some other things to keep in mind:
Make a test dataset with only your personal email to do a couple of test runs to make sure you are happy with the emails being sent. If you are including links in the email make sure they work.
Their should be an option to send a bunch of individual emails, or to multiple people in the same email. Make sure each person gets their own email.
Spend some time to develop a well-written email. People will be more likely to take it seriously and less likely to think it spam.
If you have any other specific questions I may be able to provide some input.
As far as redevelopment of Spiritwars...rewriting the program in another language will be a lot more work. I guess the main question is whether it is possible to fix in Visual Basic. I seem to recall it was a new version of windows that caused it to stop working and you can't expect everyone to run a Window's XP emulator.
Hope some of this helps.
Lyn Chase:
An update: Eric and I explored options and ultimately purchased a one month "Express E-mail Marketing" option from our internet provider, GoDaddy. The system required us to send a notice first, giving recipients the option of subscribing to our "marketing campaign" or declining. Thus far, very few people have actually received our e-mail as most either declined to subscribe, ignored us or reported us as spammers.
We have, however, reached several players who have registered here and have posted. We have also had to deal with many spammers here on this forum. It is frustrating to me to be reported as a spammer and, at the same time, receive SO MUCH spam here!
If you have any contact information from SpiritWars players who have not yet registered here, please let them know about the forum. I am very grateful to all of you who have come here and encouraged us, given us advice and offered to help. We will press on!
Love, Lyn
TwistedMe:
Lyn, I can't imagine the headache you're facing... but I CAN imagine the results! If programming is so difficult... consider paying someone! Once you get it working... companies like Zynga and Kixeye are making HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars on Facebook! MafiaWars... VampireWars... Farmville... Fishville... Battle Pirates... Backyard Monsters.... the list is endless.... read this...
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-get-completely-addicted-to-a-stupid-facebook-game-2009-12?op=1
or this...
http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/12/zynga-history/
or this...
http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/16/kixeye-quietly-becomes-a-financial-juggernaut-in-facebook-hardcore-social-games/
There is major coinage to be made and you have a product that can do it! I've got a ton of ideas and want to help any way I can! Unfortunately, you have to get thru the programming part without me! Please don't ask me to learn programming.... but I will if that's what it takes! (no, I won't)
You want my opinion? Forget "spamming". Worthless. You want people? You want Facebook. This game needs to be on Facebook. I would bet my membership fees for a year that you could have a million registered users in 6 months. Come on.... seriously? Someone tell me I'm wrong. Someone explain to me how I could be so far off the mark? Well, reality "slap-in-the-face".... I'm not wrong. Let's get this thing rolling downhill! Where do we go? What do we do?
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