Today I was tasked with the responsibility of creating a new web form that can retrieve visitor submission information and send a simple email along to the person tracking subscriptions.
It got me thinking.
Since we have a list of existing users and a database table with some rudimentary form of the subscriber list, can’t I just go all the way and keep track of both new subscribers, i.e. non-members, and the existing subscribers so I can export a list? Going further, I thought, we can create reports on this list.
In my last job at Trinity University, I tracked and managed large sets of address information. One of the biggest headaches was wrong or invalid addresses. Fortunately, there are several services that keep track of just kind of data and can be compared against your dataset. I now have a nicely shrink wrapped copy of address verification software on my desk.
What started out as a simple email form has blown into a new application to verify addresses and manage magazine subscriptions. Yes, its more work, but it will make it easier to track and verify our mailings.
It won’t hurt that we can also export addresses sorted by ZIP code and get a break on the postage.
Hmm. Useful and fiscally responsible. What a concept.