If you have a membership system, blog or e-learning application, you most likely want to put your new sign-ups into some type of autoresponder system at the same time.  However, you really don’t want to make them sign up twice – once for your application, and once for the autoresponder.  Wouldn’t it be nice if you could auto-subscribe your new members to your mailing list application automatically?

If you use Aweber, or a similar service, you can just have your membership system shoot an email to yourListName@aweber.com – your recipient will automatically receive an opt-in verification message from Aweber.  Many 3rd party services are integrated with Aweber, like E-Junkie – you can configure the E-Junkie cart to prompt Aweber to send a verification message automatically.

What if you run your own autoresponder script?  What if your autoresponder script does not support subscribe by email? Is there a way to easily integrate an autoresponder script with another type of system?  Thankfully, the answer is ‘Yes’ – with a little PHP scripting.

PHP supports a very cool little extension called cURL – this library of software magic allows you to automate lots of things over the Internet – including the filling out of autoresponder subscription forms.  To get this to work, you need PHP with cURL support (most any unix/linux webhost).  If you don’t know if your host has this, just ask.

Step 1 : get the html source of your autoresponder subscription form – make sure it’s the form for the correct mailing list – as most scripts put some kind of long ‘form id’ within the sign-up form.  This code tells the autoresponder which list the form is requesting.  Note: if you are using a service like Aweber Get the HTML version of your form, not the javascript version.  Open the html form in your notepad application.

You will need to document following from your autoresponder html submission form:

1.  The post action url (note that for some autoresponders, the subscribe script may have a querystring variable appended to the script, to help identify the correct mailing list or account-I’ve included one in this example- not all scripts will require a querystring):

<form method="post" action=http://scriptdomain.com/path/subscribe.php?listID=343 >

2. The Name and Email name attributes:

<input  value="" name="FirstName" type="text" size="30" >

<input  value="" name="Email" type="text" size="30" >

Your code will look a bit different, but all these forms have a name and email input field.  You want to note the ‘name’ attributes – you’ll need them for the script.

3. Now identify any ‘hidden’ input fields in your form and note the ‘name’ attribute.

<input type="hidden" name="FormCode"

value="9a2bba0636de2430693f445480875730">

4.  Next, document all of the form fields for your script:

url: http://scriptdomain.com/path/subscribe.php?listID=343

Form Fields:
Email
FirstName
FormCode

5.  Ok – now let’s code the integration (I’m assuming PHP here):

<?php

//first, find the variables in your sign-up script that contain the user's first

// name and email

//again, your code will look different - //just find the variables for first name and email

//your script may use a simple $_POST function as in the example below for

//$firstname  - Or your script may have a more secure and modular way to 

//define the variable, like the example below for $email ...

$firstName=$_POST['firstName'];

$email=AWLRequest::post('email',45);

// ok, now somewhere after your script processes the sign -up, put this code:

//NOTE: always use //MOD comments around your changes!

//DSP MOD:send message to autoresponder

  

// create a new curl resource

$ch = curl_init();

// set URL and other appropriate options - use the url for your subscribe script

  

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, http://scriptdomain.com/path/subscribe.php?listID=343);

// Do a POST - this is an array - the HTML field names from your submit form// are the 'keys'

 

$data = array('FirstName' => $firstName, 'Email' => $email,'FormCode'=>'9a2bba0636de2430693f445480875730');

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);

// execute cURL command:

$exec=curl_exec($ch);

            //END DSP MOD

And that’s all you do!  Each time your form processing script executes, the user’s name and email are sent to your autoresponder script for processing.

To test this script, create a stand-alone version of the cURL code only,  with hard-coded values for the firstname an an email address like this:

<?php

$email = 'me@mydomain.com';
$firstName = 'My name';

$ch = curl_init();

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "http://scriptdomain.com/path/subscribe.php?listID=343");
// get the vars

// Do a POST
$data = array('Fields[1]' => $firstName, 'Email' => $email,
        'FormCode'=>'9a2bba0636de2430693f445480875730',
                      'Format'=>'1','SelectLists[1]'=>'YES');//note - splitting lines in php code is ok - php looks for the ending semicolon to //tell the end of a line of code

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);

// grab URL, and print
$exec=curl_exec($ch);
?>

Now save this script with any name you want, upload to your server and load it into your web browser.  If all is working, you’ll get an email from your autoresponder script.

Troubleshooting tips:

Make sure you have the correct form field names from the sign up form

Make sure your path to the subscribe.php or whatever it’s called for your autoresponder system is correct.

Be sure that your web host allows cURL (almost all do).

The #1 coding error for PHP beginners – forgetting the semicolon at the end of each line!

Best Regards,

Carl

As you build your mailing list, you should notify your mailing list subscribers about your regular blog posts. This is a proven way to build repeat traffic to your blog. Each time you post, your list gets a notice with a link to your new post. Here’s how it’s done with Aweber:

Log into your Aweber control panel, choose the appropriate list and click the Messages tab – then click Blog Broadcast.

In the rss feed box, put the url to your blog feed – in WordPress, it’s normally http://www.yourdomain.com/feed.

Select Auto Send, # of Items = 1, basic template.

For your subject line, use something like this (all on one line): 

{!firstname_fix},

A New Blog Post:

{!rss_itemblock}{!rss_item_title}{!rss_itemblockend}

In your message box, use something like:

Hey, {!firstname_fix},

I have just posted a blog entry:
{!rss_itemblock}

{!rss_item_title}
Read more: {!rss_item_link}

{!rss_itemblockend}

To Your Success,

Carl Ringwall
Data SystemsPlus

{!contact_address}

That should do it. Post regularly, and try to keep your content relevant to your list.  If you have not tried the Aweber autoresponder service, it is highly recommended.

I have spent the last year marketing online, and frankly, I’m tired. I did make some good money this past year, but I earned every penny.   I’ve marketed my own electronic products, promoted rebrandable e-books, sold on eBay, offered digital downloads, ran an affiliate program, created autoresponder messages, cloaked my affiliate links, tracked my sales, advertised on AdWords, promoted joint ventures, built an email list, created a blog, set up a merchant account, signed up for Clickbank,  optimized my search engine position, created membership sites, did one-time offers, created DVD’s marketed PLR products, created product feeds, gave away free bonuses, tested my sales copy, used friendly urls, did keyword research, optimized my robots.txt,  revised my permalink structure, created xml sitemaps, dropshipped products, wrote articles, syndicated my content, put a product on Amazon.com, sent a newsletter, submitted to social media sites, wrote paid reviews, and all of this while I regularly created fresh, engaging content on numerous blogs.  I even managed to get one of my domains banned from Google.   No wonder I’m tired.

Since I’ve done all of this stuff, I figured I could make some more money by telling you, gentle reader, how you can do it, too.  I just don’t recommend you trying to do it all in one year’s time.

I’m in the process of turning this blog into an e-learning site where I’ll spill the goods on how to do all this stuff, and more.   Stay tuned for updates.

For years, we’ve been using email auto responder services like Aweber to communicate to readers and potential customers. One of the more popular techniques used is the blog announcement – an automated email that goes out every time you create a post. This technique keeps your readers engaged and encourages them to come back to your blog often.

Aweber has a feature that monitors the feed from your blog and when it sees a post – it triggers a pre-formatted email to your list. It’s not hard to configure and is very reliable. But if you are using your auto responder service primarily to send out blog announcements, you are paying for a service that you can get for free – using FeedBurner.

FeedBurner is a free blogger service that takes your rss feed and packages it into many innovative delivery options. If you are new to FeedBurner, it takes a bit to get the hang of what they are really offering. The best way to learn is to simply create an account and start playing with it. It’s free – and the service has been recently acquired by Google.

Burn a feed and sign up for the email service – you’ll get simple code to put on your site that allows readers to opt-in to an email version of your blog – complete with attractive layouts, links, etc. It’s totally double opt-in, and works flawlessly.

Here is what the opt-in form looks like:

Or, include a simple opt-in link: Subscribe to Data SystemsPlus by Email. Feel free to opt in to my blog list!

FeedBurner email is the way to go for blog announcement lists – it’s free, professional – looking and readers know they are not giving their email to be spammed with the one-click unsubscribe.