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Q. How do I incorporate email newsletters in my Drupal website?

There are 3 ways to use email newsletters on your Drupal website:

1. You can use a popular e-newsletter software to collect email addresses and to send out your newsletter. Eg. Constant Contact, MailChimp or Campaign Monitor.

2. You can create your own custom form using Drupal module called Webform to collect names and email addresses and download the results. These results can be uploaded to the e-newsletter software of your choice.

3. Drupal has its own Newslettter subscription module called SimpleNews. This will enable you to send out your newsletter from your own server. However, newsletters produced by Simplenews are often caught by Spam filters. So using the SimpleNews module is NOT recommended.

The 3 top Newsletter clients are:
MailChimp
Campaign Monitor
Constant Contact

Drupal 6.x modules are freely available on Drupal.org for MailChimp and Campaign Monitor. However, the Drupal 6.x module for Constant Contact is available for purchase. See http://drupal.org/node/229996 Would someone please fix this module and put it on Drupal.org for FREE! It would be much appreciated.

A. MailChimp
http://drupal.org/project/mailchimp
This module provides integration with the MailChimp email delivery service. While tools for sending email from your own server, like SimpleNews, are great, they lack the sophistication and ease of use of dedicated email providers like MailChimp. Other players in this field are Constant Contact and Campaign Monitor.

B. Campaign Monitor
http://drupal.org/project/campaignmonitor
This module integrates the Campaign Monitor API into Drupal so you can give users the ability to subscribe and unsubscribe for your Campaign Monitor manage lists through a block on your Drupal site. You must have an account with Campaign Monitor (http://www.campaignmonitor.com) to use this module.

C. Constant Contact
http://drupal.org/project/constant_contact
This module works for Drupal 5.x only. This allows users and anonymous visitors to your site to opt-in (and opt-out) of your constant contact mailing lists. It adds a block for each list that you configure. It sends a configurable email to users who signup, optionally explaining how to opt-out. It allows you to import all of your existing users into a list, as well.
I heard there was a working version for Drupal 6.x in the CVS.
Here's a patch to make a Drupal 6 version: See http://drupal.org/node/229996
Or you can purchase a working Drupal 6.x module here: http://cc.justphpsoftware.com/

2. Export Subscribers name and email address then upload to Constant Contact.
- Use Webform module to make a small form to capture name and email address.
How to put your webform in a block:
- Go to the Site Build/blocks page
- Type in your intro blurb:
Eg: "Top 7 Tips for High Rankings in Google" Get this FREE Report when you
Sign up for our monthly newsletter.

- Then type in the following:

<?php
print node_view(node_load(63), FALSE, TRUE, FALSE);
?>

- Replace 63 with the node ID of your webform. To find it, go to Content – List.
Click on your webform and use Firefox Firebug to find the node ID.
- Be sure to select PHP Code as your Input Format. To enable this format, go to Site Building/Modules - Core- Optional and enable PHP filter.
- You can replace the Submit button text with your own wording. Go to Advanced Webform settings and enter new Submit button text.
- Use CSS to style the image for the Submit button. Then you will most likely need to set the Submit button text to a “ “ , a space, in the above instruction

To View your Form Results and Download them
- Go to Content – List
- Find your Webform and click on the title to view it
- You will see these tabs at the top: View Edit, Results Track
- Click on Results

- Click on Download to download form results in CSV format. This file can then be uploaded to your Constant Contact Account. You can also download your form results directly to MS Excel.