contacting forum members

[ric_SPS]

Hi there,

I'm just having a few issues with contacting all my forum members, and wondered what the easiest way was...

1. To PM everyone I have to add them to the pm individually, which would take an age (400 odd members). I can PM groups, but for a group to contain all members i would have to add them individually to it, so same problem. Also, a lot of people have their prefernces set to not recieve an email when they get a new pm, so if they don't log onto forum they wont get see it.... Is there a way to change everyones preferences to "recieve emails for new pm - yes" without doing them all individually?

2. I could send everyone a newsletter... but again some people have their preferences set to "allow newsletters - no" - is there a way to change this without going through every acct indiviually?

3. I can grab every members email address by copy pasting each page of the memberlist that gives their email, into excel, pulling the right column, and then using this data to send a mass email from an outiside program - but this wont be connected to the forum and they would most likely all hit peoples spam folders

4. I can "handle members" and email everyone who hasnt the visited the forum in the last "1" day, which will obviously contact most of them - but i see no options here to make the email look interesting, it only seems to allow plain text, no pics/formatting, etc. Also it doesnt mention who the sender of the email will be.

It's not that i want to spam all my members, just we have a few promotions coming up which i would like to advertise to everyone, although i have used method 1 and 2 previously, this doesnt reach everyone, 3 is irritating due to not knowing whether im reaching everyone (spam filters etc), and 4 seems cumbersome and basic....

Any ideas or solutions? I have refrained from adding my forum link to this post as it doesn't seem pertinent to my question, but please ask if you need it!

tx

ric

[MrMario]

Best way would be to do a auto group and then send messages via that group. Set the post limit to one and you will have everyone.

Newsletters work but you can't make all members accept it since its their profile.

[ric_SPS]

tx for your swift response MrMario, much appreciated

So setting the post limit to 1 for an auto group also includes people with 0 posts? Handy, thanks!

Many still wont see it until they log on to forum as they have it set to not email them, but at least everyone will get a chance to see the message, unlike newsletters.

I think i may still have to try option 4, and "handle users" who havent been online since yesterday, but thanks anyway!

[MrMario]

Forumotion made the post to 1. There is a suggestion going on to make it 0.

[ric_SPS]

ok i've tried this, and people with 0 posts aren't included in the group auto add. I thought this in the first place, but then thought id try it since it was suggested lol.

Would be a lot easier if there was just an option, for Admin only, that sent a PM to all members.

[MustangMan99]

When a new user joins, just add them to a group. I did that, labeled, all members, and it works fine.

[ric_SPS]

When a new user joins, just add them to a group. I did that, labeled, all members, and it works fine.

tx for reply... good plan, but i now have 400 members... lol... just gonna take a while...