Email forum accounts

A place to discuss shard marketing ideas to find players seeking a T2A experience.
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Downs
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Email forum accounts

Post by Downs »

Can staff send out a newsletter to the emails they have on file? I asked before and was told that's a Derrick decision.

A regular newsletter or even a "hey come check us out again" message may draw in some old blood to the shard. Let em know events exist!
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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by Roser »

Good idea. I would be up for crafting a nice looking front page type of layout each month.

"The Secondage Herald"

What a great way to keep people informed as to what happens in a typical month of UOSA.
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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by Kaivan »

Since we've never asked whether we can send out newsletters to those players that we have an e-mail for on file, I'm rather against the idea of sending unsolicited e-mails to players that have given us their e-mail for account or forum registration.

Effectively, sending such an e-mail represents a potential spam e-mail that players were not informed about, and had no option to opt out of when they gave us their e-mail address, and it represents a misuse of that information that was given in confidence to us for a specific purpose.

Edit: There may be some sort of workaround or solution, but as of now I don't know what that would be.
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Downs
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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by Downs »

that's what I wasn't sure about, is it something worth setting up going forward?
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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by Dunder Mifflin Inc »

Kaivan wrote:Since we've never asked whether we can send out newsletters to those players that we have an e-mail for on file, I'm rather against the idea of sending unsolicited e-mails to players that have given us their e-mail for account or forum registration.

Effectively, sending such an e-mail represents a potential spam e-mail that players were not informed about, and had no option to opt out of when they gave us their e-mail address, and it represents a misuse of that information that was given in confidence to us for a specific purpose.

Edit: There may be some sort of workaround or solution, but as of now I don't know what that would be.

I can't see this as being an issue as long as you have an opt-out link in the email. When they registered their account here on the forums they agreed to be apart of the forum. They received a 'Welcome' email when they signed up, but they didn't agree to that either and that's perfectly fine. It works a long the same lines.

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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by Kaivan »

Downs wrote:that's what I wasn't sure about, is it something worth setting up going forward?
Going forward, it would be nice to formalize a lot of things. For example, I'd like to actually separate the process for logging into the server from account registration, and to set up an account registration page. There are several implications in terms of improvements that could be done with that, but as related to this particular topic, it would allow us to have an opt-in option for receiving newsletters and messages about the server. This could be extended to include new player commands like [optin and [optout that would allow an account owner to toggle the option to receive these e-mails from within their client, and would allow players to actively determine whether they would like to have these messages sent or not.

Edit: As it relates to the forum accounts themselves, there is an option in the control panel for receiving e-mails from administrators, but the option is on by default, and no option is ever given to opt out of receiving those e-mails before registering. Therefore, I'm not entirely sure that we can effectively differentiate between those that would actively opt-in to getting advertisements from the server, and those that weren't even aware that such an option existed on the server, nor do I think that the option implies that the communication from administrators is about anything but administrative duties, not advertisements.
Dunder Mifflin Inc wrote:
Kaivan wrote:Since we've never asked whether we can send out newsletters to those players that we have an e-mail for on file, I'm rather against the idea of sending unsolicited e-mails to players that have given us their e-mail for account or forum registration.

Effectively, sending such an e-mail represents a potential spam e-mail that players were not informed about, and had no option to opt out of when they gave us their e-mail address, and it represents a misuse of that information that was given in confidence to us for a specific purpose.

Edit: There may be some sort of workaround or solution, but as of now I don't know what that would be.

I can't see this as being an issue as long as you have an opt-out link in the email. When they registered their account here on the forums they agreed to be apart of the forum. They received a 'Welcome' email when they signed up, but they didn't agree to that either and that's perfectly fine. It works a long the same lines.
Actually this really isn't the case at all. The welcome and activation e-mail are part of the process for actually registering and activating an account, whereas an e-mail sent out as part of an advertising campaign is not something that players were even given the choice to opt out of to begin with, and it is an abuse of the information to assume that players implicitly want them to begin with.
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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by Dunder Mifflin Inc »

You could start it off with a 'warning' letter stating that all UOSA forum accounts will be receiving a monthly newsletter going forward and if they would like to opt-out they can do so through this warning email.

So it's not spam, you are informing them of a change within the system that they have control over.

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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by Kaivan »

Spam to inform them of spam is not really a solution. At best an e-mail with an opt-in option would be the way it could be done, but I don't think that we have any justification for the first e-mail, much less any others.
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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by Boomland Jenkins »

Kaivan wrote: Edit: As it relates to the forum accounts themselves, there is an option in the control panel for receiving e-mails from administrators, but the option is on by default, and no option is ever given to opt out of receiving those e-mails before registering. Therefore, I'm not entirely sure that we can effectively differentiate between those that would actively opt-in to getting advertisements from the server, and those that weren't even aware that such an option existed on the server, nor do I think that the option implies that the communication from administrators is about anything but administrative duties, not advertisements.

If this option is selected by default, we are able to send out emails from the forums to users. They have opt'd in. The email should give instructions to the user on how to opt'd out of future Administrator emails. If we are going this route, we would ideally want to send out one email asking users to opt'd into an official mailing list (via Constant Contact, MailChimp, etc). This would be within the legal realms and is ethical in regards to email and spam. This also protects our IP address from getting flagged in the future for email spam. Using a professional email marketing tool would let us gather data points and metrics that would allow us to determine effectiveness and allow users to opt'd out from the newsletter.

If someone wants to chat more about this, I'd be happy to chat via IRC sometime next week or over PM. If we decide to move forward with this, we should have a forum post to talk about topics to touch upon in the newsletter.
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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by Kaivan »

If such an e-mail campaign were to begin, it needs to begin with an e-mail asking people to follow a link to opt-in to such e-mails before anything else.

As for the Administrative e-mail option on the forums, that option carries the implication that communication received from administrators will naturally be about things occurring within the confines of their administrative duties. A more accurate option, and one that would need to be presented as an opt-in option as part of the forum registration process (and later manageable via the board settings) would be a "Receive Shard Newsletter E-mails". Of course, if we do choose to send a one time e-mail to registered forum users, and ask them to follow a link within a certain time frame as part of a separate opt-in option, then such an option would be unnecessary.
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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by Boomland Jenkins »

Kaivan wrote:If such an e-mail campaign were to begin, it needs to begin with an e-mail asking people to follow a link to opt-in to such e-mails before anything else.

As for the Administrative e-mail option on the forums, that option carries the implication that communication received from administrators will naturally be about things occurring within the confines of their administrative duties. A more accurate option, and one that would need to be presented as an opt-in option as part of the forum registration process (and later manageable via the board settings) would be a "Receive Shard Newsletter E-mails". Of course, if we do choose to send a one time e-mail to registered forum users, and ask them to follow a link within a certain time frame as part of a separate opt-in option, then such an option would be unnecessary.
Process is simple, no need to over-complicate this.

Step 1: Email everyone who has the box checked to receive emails from Administrators. This email would be giving the user instructional/informational text regarding UOSA's upcoming newsletter with an option to opt'd in for it.

Step 2: Add an opt'd in via in-game and in the email/account linking process. It should not be part of the forums or wiki database.

Step 3: Send newsletters (when warranted) to anyone who opt'd in for this.
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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by Kaivan »

Agreed, and that's what I was talking about regarding sending a one time message via the forums regarding an opt-in newsletter. The only grievance that I have with that position is that the idea is that we're using an option that is intended for forum administration purposes to do something that is very clearly not a matter of forum administration. However, no better solution exists for getting those who have already signed up for accounts to be on such an external mailing list than that.

The only thing that I would point out is that if we choose to do this, we would need an opt-in option as part of the forum registration process that allows players to add themselves to the mailing list upon sign up, and a method for those who decide not to be on the list to later sign up for the list.
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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by DKS »

Kaivan wrote:Agreed, and that's what I was talking about regarding sending a one time message via the forums regarding an opt-in newsletter. The only grievance that I have with that position is that the idea is that we're using an option that is intended for forum administration purposes to do something that is very clearly not a matter of forum administration. However, no better solution exists for getting those who have already signed up for accounts to be on such an external mailing list than that.

The only thing that I would point out is that if we choose to do this, we would need an opt-in option as part of the forum registration process that allows players to add themselves to the mailing list upon sign up, and a method for those who decide not to be on the list to later sign up for the list.


On the 'global settings' portion of the forum, it says "Administration may email me information". Is this new or has this always been here? If so, seems like you would be able to send out a newsletter!

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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by WizKid »

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Re: Email forum accounts

Post by WarmApplepie »

DKS wrote:
Kaivan wrote:Agreed, and that's what I was talking about regarding sending a one time message via the forums regarding an opt-in newsletter. The only grievance that I have with that position is that the idea is that we're using an option that is intended for forum administration purposes to do something that is very clearly not a matter of forum administration. However, no better solution exists for getting those who have already signed up for accounts to be on such an external mailing list than that.

The only thing that I would point out is that if we choose to do this, we would need an opt-in option as part of the forum registration process that allows players to add themselves to the mailing list upon sign up, and a method for those who decide not to be on the list to later sign up for the list.


On the 'global settings' portion of the forum, it says "Administration may email me information". Is this new or has this always been here? If so, seems like you would be able to send out a newsletter!
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