BF Autoresponder - version 2.0

 

Overview

BF Autoreponder is extremely easy to use PHP autoresponder and mailing list manager.

Contents

 

Requirements

The script needs only web host with PHP 4 or above and MySQL database. You will need to enable cron jobs on the server. If you want to use SMTP for mail sending, the PEAR Mail library should be enabled. This will be true by default on most web hosts.

 

Installation

The installation of BF Autoresponder is very simple and requires only few steps.

1. Create a database for BF Autoresponder. BF Autoresponder can also share the same database with other applications you may have on the host

2. Open inc/db_login.inc.php and set your DB connection details.

3. Upload the files on your web host

4. Visit install.php with your web browser.

Then all you need to do is to choose a password for the administrator account.

5. Schedule sender.php to run as a cron job once per day or once per hour (Setting it to once per hour will take care for delayed sending of newsletter emails and will not disturb the autoresponder emails in any way). If you have large email lists, you can set it to run once per 5 minutes.

If you don't know how to set up a cron job, please read our simple tutorial.

To use the script, visit admin.php with your browser.

It's highly recommended to delete install.php from the host once you have finished installation!

Changing the design

You can modify all files from folder 'templates' with any wysywig or ordinary web editor and change styles.css for the stylesheets.

 

Using BroadFast Autoresponder

1. Manage Mailing Lists and Users

This screen allows you to edit your mailing lists. You can edit and delete lists and members to them, activate or deactive or add members manually.

When you click on the number of users in each mailing list, you will be directed to the page where you can manage users. It allows you to search/filter and sort the members, see their IP address, import/export, add, edit or delete them.

If there are any unsubscribed members in the list, the number will be shown in brackets and in red color next to the number of the existing users. You can click on it and see who has unsubscribed, when and after how many received mails they unsubscribed.

On the "Manage mailing lists" page you will find also 3 other advanced features:

- Manage Custom Fields - you can create custom fields in each mailing list. They allow you to collect more data from your subscribers. The data then can be used in importing and exporting, and as well for customizing the mails with masks.

- Import/Export - it allows you to import members from Excell (CSV file) and export them into comma separated file

- Synchronize - This unique feature is for advanced users only. It allows you to integrate BF Autoresponder with any other existing web application you may have. If you have a MySQL database with members you can synchronize the mailing list which you have in BF with that database. In the Database Details section you should enter the connection values for the source database. If BF shares the same database you can leave all these fields blank. The Members table details section is to enter the actual name of the table where the members data is stored. You also need to fill the names of the fields where the specific data (name and email) is stored and the system even allows you to use more than one field for "name" (for example your application may store the name in 2 fields - first_name and last_name)

2. Manage Autoresponders

Here you can define and edit autoresponders. For each autoresponder you will be able to see registration URL or get the HTML code of the registration form.

Each active autoresponder has also a link to view log - the log shows detailed information about what mails were sent, when, to which subscriber etc.

Before doing that you should create at least one mailing list, because each autoresponder needs to be attached to a mailing list.

There are two types of autoresponders:

- Fixed dates. If you select such type, your mails will be sent to the subscribers of the selected mailing lists at fixed dates. This is useful for holiday greetings, new product launches or other events that are common for all the subscribers.

- Sequential. This is the most common type of autoresponder. The mails are sent at defined by you intervals of time after the user's registration. This autoresponder yelds very good results in selling and is appropriate for e-courses and other marketing sequences. There is no limit to the number of mails you can schedule in one autoresponder.

3. View Newsletters

On this page you will see all saved newsletters sent or saved previously. You can edit or open any of them and use it again. Using the link at the top you can create and send a new newsletter

4. General Settings

Here you can change the administrators password or to activate or deactivate online registration module. You can also set if you want the mails from broadcast to be sent immediately or via cron job (see below). You can limit the amount of mails sent per hour accordingly to your hosting limitations and to set delay between each mail (for the same reason).

- Sending the mails as cron job: If you want to activate it you need to schedule execution of sender.php once per hour

5. Bounced Mails Settings

Using this advanced feature BF can automatically clean up your mailing list from innactive accounts. You can delete or deactivate accounts after a number of bounced back mails. Your bounce address must be real email on the server and it should be different than the "Sender" email. Then you need to add a forwarder that will forward the emails received from the bounce address to the script bounce.php. The format of the command slightly differs on different server, so you will need to check what is it on yours. Please don't contact me asking about this - only your server administrators can answer you.

6. Member details and masks.

By default you can use thee masks that can be replaced in the emails subject and message - {{name}}, {{firstname}} and {{email}}. Although the registration pages take full name only, the script extracts the first name automatically so you don't need to create a custom field for that.  The software will also take care for unification of the entered names, because some people enter them in all caps, or only small letters, use commas and so on.

7. Files and Links.

You can embed URLs to web pages and files in your emails and you can also track the number of clicks/downloads they receive. Visit the Files/Links menu and add your URLs or upload your files. The system will show you the tracking URL under each link or file. You can then use this URL in your newsletters or autoresponder emails.

Upgrading from previous versions

Upgrading BF Autoresponder is easy:
  1. Export your existing DB Autresponder database data (Not structure, only data!). The easiest way to do this is through PHPMyAdmin
  2. Install BF Autoresponder as if you were doing a fresh install.
  3. Import the database data that you exported in step 1. That's all! Your admin password will be the same as in the previous installation.


Support

For any problems or questions contact me on admin@pimteam.net

 

License

The license of this script allows you to install it on unlimited domains that you own. Reselling it however is not allowed. If you are interested in reselling, please contact me.

A Product of P.I.M. Team Bulgaria