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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56331

  • Greg L
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Our club is looking to trim our Meetup list (100+ people) to keep our numbers within the 'Basic' level. Instead of completely losing contact with all these people, before deleting them on Meetup.com, we were thinking we could invite them to Like our FB page and invite them to 'Subscribe' to our website via the Friends/Affiliates FTH list. That way, we could occasionally stay in touch with them.

I tested the FTH Contact Us form. It adds to the Prospects list and says 'Someone will be in touch soon' after filling out the form. I have the ability to manually move them to Friends/Affiliates, but seems labor intensive and we don't really need to 'get in touch with them'.

I know it opens us up a bit to spammy form subscribers, but that would be manageable if there is a way to allow 'outsiders/non-members' to automatically add themselves to a Custom List or Friends/Affiliates list?

Thanks in advance for any guidance/suggestions!
Valued Voices Toastmasters #7744
Chandler, Arizona
valuedvoices.toastmastersclubs.org/
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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56333

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Meetup can get populated with people you never hear from again especially if it has been over 6 months and it you emailed them would probably mark your email as spam.

You need have the specified permission to add any email to any mailing list, that is called opting-in. I would not recommend adding anyone from meetup to the friends list in FTH without a specific email or signed card or form that says they want your email.

Thank you,

Brian McDonald DTM, PDD D61
FTH Lead Technical Support
member Cataraqui Valley Toastmaster 9560
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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56337

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I 100% agree, Brian. That's why I'm looking for a way to invite them to subscribe themselves to our FTH list. :)
Valued Voices Toastmasters #7744
Chandler, Arizona
valuedvoices.toastmastersclubs.org/
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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56338

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Invite them to the club and then once they sign your guest card with the email authorization add them to the FTH guest list.

Get them in the door and make them members.

Thank you,

Brian McDonald DTM, PDD D61
FTH Lead Technical Support
member Cataraqui Valley Toastmaster 9560
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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56341

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I agree that getting 100+ people in the door in the next week or two is an ideal situation.

What we're up against is the fact that they've already 'opted in' to our Meetup list and a deadline when we are about to have to sever ongoing contact with them with no way of further relationship-building to get them in the door.

I'm looking for a long-term online solution to move their opt-in (and receive many more future opt-ins, I'd hope) to a FTH list to have the opportunity to continue to be able to invite them in the door and make them members. :D

I just need to know if this CAN/CANNOT be done on FTH.
Hope that clarifies. :D
Valued Voices Toastmasters #7744
Chandler, Arizona
valuedvoices.toastmastersclubs.org/
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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56342

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You can add them one by one to you guest list, just not optimum. You should clean the list first of people who are no longer interested. Email them all and ask if they want to continue if they respond add them.

Thank you,

Brian McDonald DTM, PDD D61
FTH Lead Technical Support
member Cataraqui Valley Toastmaster 9560
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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56345

  • Greg L
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We can absolutely contact them and manually add them one-by-one, and this is what we may have to do if there's not an easier and more future-sustainable way. As a 'systems guy', I agree with your assessment that this is certainly 'not an optimum' way to do this. FTH already has Unsubscribe ability, so a simple Subscribe button, like on blogs where people opt-in themselves, is really what I'm looking for.

I appreciate all the responses and will infer from all the work-around suggestions that this CANNOT be done on FTH. Since I'd be willing to bet many clubs don't have FB Groups/Pages or Blogs (AND your FTH platform is already an awesome way to streamline club email communications with potential members), I think this would be a great low-risk way for interested non-members to get on a club's mailing list. Maybe I'll go to the Suggestions For Improvement forum and suggest it.

Thanks again for your time. :)
Valued Voices Toastmasters #7744
Chandler, Arizona
valuedvoices.toastmastersclubs.org/
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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56347

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FTH was never designed as a mailing list for non members. We really don't want to get into that mass mail business. there are other tools out on the web for that. Constant Contact, mailchimp etc.

Thank you,

Brian McDonald DTM, PDD D61
FTH Lead Technical Support
member Cataraqui Valley Toastmaster 9560
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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56348

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You can edit the greeting on your contact form, and you can direct the contact details to be saved in any of your non-member email groups or even better in a custom group.

Only thing is that any other enquiries (non meetup) will go to the same email list.

If you know which are which you can manually move the relevant contacts into a custom "Meetup" Group

See the Contact Forms section of this page: support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/email-and-contact-forms
See the Custom Groups section on this page: support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/membership-management
Pam Holley, DTM
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Redlands Toastmasters Club, Secretary 2023-2024 redlands.toastmastersclubs.org/
HOT, President 2023-2024 hot.toastmastersclubs.org
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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56350

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AH! There's the answer I needed! A simple NO and NOT INTERESTED haha. THANK YOU. :D :D
Valued Voices Toastmasters #7744
Chandler, Arizona
valuedvoices.toastmastersclubs.org/
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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56351

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My previous comment was directed to Brian. I'll take a look, Pam. Thx.
Valued Voices Toastmasters #7744
Chandler, Arizona
valuedvoices.toastmastersclubs.org/
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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56353

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It isn't that we're not interested, it is that we need to be practical - across all clubs, and do what is best for all. It isn't good practice to send out unsolicited email (not a good reflection). Non-members are given the ability to opt-out if they don't want to receive email from the club. Friends / affiliates is really meant for people like Area Directors, other District Officers you keep in touch with, other club officers if you have inter-club activity, suppliers...... Typically Guests would be people who have visited the club in person, and Prospects is an ideal place for people who contact your club via the contact form. If your Meetup contacts are going to go to the trouble of accessing your facebook page and then enter their details on your website contact form, they might have a genuine interest, but as Brian says, I wouldn't recommend just adding them willy-nilly. Your lists should be cleaned up periodically. Someone should also respond to anyone who does enter their details on the contact form - invite them to your next meeting....
Pam Holley, DTM
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HOT, President 2023-2024 hot.toastmastersclubs.org
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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56355

  • Greg L
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Pam, thanks for the further clarification, but I think we're all on the same page and saying the same things here haha, just maybe in different ways.

1. Per Brian, FTH is 'not interested' in being MailChimp, etc. Just for emailing a few dozen members and immediate contacts.
2. No one here is trying to or wanting to send unsolicited emails.
3. Cleaning lists and avoiding the willy-nilly are good things. :)

All I was asking if there was a way to potentially keep in touch with our still-interested already-opted-ins (as we clean up our list (on Meetup), as you and Brian both suggested) and move those still interested to another platform (potentially FTH email lists) to allow our club to continue to keep in touch with those who wanted to keep in touch. If this HAD been possible, I thought it also had potential as a 'Blog Subscription' type of list. Since we can't do that on FTH (which I now understand we can't/shouldn't), what we have available to offer our Meetups is Facebook.

What I foresee happening is that we'll contact our Meetup list and invite them to join us on FB. I know everyone isn't on FB, so we might get a few and the rest will be gone when we clean up the list. I don't know that we have any volunteers willing to put the time into doing the one-by-one thing. Not good or bad, necessarily...it is what it is and we do what we can with what we have available. :D

Just to be clear, I'm not upset or angry (haha sometimes difficult to tell just with text). As someone who does social media marketing for a living (I'm VPPR currently), I just told our executive committee that it would be a shame if we couldn't save some of these already-opted-ins and I'd offer to look into our options before we just bulk deleted everyone on Meetup. I just needed a definitive answer YEA or NAY whether this was possible/advisable before moving on this.

I believe I have the answer to the question I asked, so I'll feel better about being able to make an informed decision about deleting our Meetup contacts. I appreciate your (and Brian's) time and feedback. :)
Valued Voices Toastmasters #7744
Chandler, Arizona
valuedvoices.toastmastersclubs.org/
Last edit: by Greg L.
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Is there a way for non-members to add themselves to Friends/Affiliate list? 7 years 10 months ago #56356

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I don't know that we have any volunteers willing to put the time into doing the one-by-one thing. Not good or bad, necessarily...it is what it is and we do what we can with what we have available. :D


Long Answer:

You can capture the contacts into any group - as per my earlier post

We were referring to cleaning up your FTH lists - delete guests and prospects) after a couple of months if they haven't returned. They can always be added back later if they visit again

Not suggesting or recommending this - but you could do a bulk import (Quick Add) if you can format your data as for importing members from TI - but make sure you have the correct group selected.

Short Answer: Possible but not advisable ;)
Pam Holley, DTM
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Redlands Toastmasters Club, Secretary 2023-2024 redlands.toastmastersclubs.org/
HOT, President 2023-2024 hot.toastmastersclubs.org
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