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Using Mailing Lists
Early signs from the US, such as the recent election of Jesse Ventura in Minnesota, suggest that mailing lists are going to be the most powerful political campaigning tools on the internet in the immediate future.
What is a mailing list?
A mailing list is a list of e-mail addresses of people who share an interest in the same topic. It can be limited to people inside the party, or can include other people who share an interest in a particular topic - a local campaigning issue for example.
Why should I set up mailing lists?
They are excellent for sending information to a large group of people quickly, cheaply and easily - both inside and outside the party. Some of the things you can use mailing lists for include:
- Sending out newsletters to party members or people interested in particular issues (although of course you will need to keep using the post or shoe leather to deliver to people without e-mail addresses).
- Requesting help, volunteers or funds
- Reminding people of meetings or events the day before they happen
- Reminding people to vote before an election (although don't forget to include an imprint)
- Sending out press releases or briefings in response to topical issues
- Providing a forum for discussion, although this should be done with care since it can generate rather overwhelming amounts of e-mail.
How can I set up some mailing lists?
A good place to start is a site such as Topica, Onelist or ListBot. These sites enable you to set up a mailing list quickly and easily.
The big advantage of using a service like these is that they do most of the administration of the mailing list for you.
- You don't need to worry about the logistics of removing people who want to leave the list or change their e-mail address.
- You can arrange for more than one person to organise a mailing list. You don't have to do everything yourself.
- If you decide to make your list public, it becomes easy for people to add themselves to your list via these central services if they're interested in your campaign topic.
- Using mailing lists is more secure than typing long lists of addresses in an e-mail program - since a proper mailing list doesn't let people on the list see who else is on the list.
Tips on using mailing lists effectively
- Always ask a person's permission before adding them to your mailing list.
- For an internal party list where you intend to discuss confidential matters, make sure that membership is 'closed' so that non-members cannot add themselves to the list.
- If you have a public list, perhaps one focused on a particular local or national issue, make it 'open' for people to join, so that you can use it to recruit supporters on your issue. This means that people can join the mailing list automatically by emailing an address such as ldo-news-test-subscribe@topica.com.
- Consider adding a form to your website, like the one on this page, to make it easy for people to sign up to your mailing list. A copy of the source code is here.
- Unless you have a very good reason and ask people for their permission in advance, keep the list of members confidential.
- If you intend to use the list for local discussion, then set the list as 'unmoderated' - otherwise
set the list as 'moderated' or 'announcement only'.
Not many people are using mailing lists inside the party at the moment, so most of these tips are taken from other sites on using the internet campaigning. If you have some more tips to add, please send them to me. If you would like to know more about mailing lists, Learn The Net has a useful guide.
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