BuddyPress.org

Haraldo, there is nothing wrong with your install, there is NO built in way to message all users in BP. The site notification will merely place a widget type notice at the top of your sidebar for all logged in users, which thy can then choose o close. It isn’t emailed or passed as a private message.

There are a couple of old plugins for this such as: https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/buddypress-mass-messaging/screenshots/

It’s an option that is useful, HOWEVER, I would strongly recommend you export your users to CSV. Again export plugins are available and import people into a 3rd party email service like Mailchimp.

This is far better for email marketing, however in itself is a bit tricky, as unless your members have signed up or opted into a list, it’s technically breaking the T&C’s of all 3rd party mail apps.

The problem with sending email direct from your server is if you get people unwittingly or deliberately labelling your mail as junk/ spam in clients like hotmail, yahoo and gmail, the ip address of your server can get blacklisted.

At that point NO mail at all from your server is going to get through to those services, not just for the accounts that labelled you as spam but your server will be blocked and mail won’t reach anyone with a hotmail address etc.

Sounds dramatic but it could kill your community if you aren’t careful.

You should always use a 3rd party.

Rules are still incredibly stringent though. You are generally allowed one spam complaint in every 1000 emails sent.

Hope that helps!

You’ve got both options covered there.

Firstly i would most definitely implement an email sign up form on your site anyway. Link it up with an autoresponder so that people receive a nice email, or sequence of emails from you when they sign up, so that they build trust and open your emails in future.

In terms of importing your list. When you do that, Mailchimp, Aweber (who ever you go with) records how the list was implemented.

It’s perfectly allowed, BUT if you get spam complaints they will ask you to remove the entire list, or close your account.

I had this once, where I had a list from a trade show I exhibited at.

First mailshot went out to 2000 people, not ONE complaint.

I thought cool, I’ll drop another one a few weeks later.

About 6 weeks later I sent out another mail (only 2 mails in 6 weeks), and 11 spam complaints.

Shows how unpredictable it is. Mailchimp asked me to remove the list or leave.

HAD that list all been double opt-in i.e. they sign up, get a confirmation which they then have to click a ‘yes sign me up’ link on, then Mailchimp wouldn’t have been bothered. We simply cleanse the list of the complainers.

Email marketing and list building is a very tricky business, as you always get the idiots reporting spam which ISN’T spam. This is either thorough laziness or through ignorance of not knowing what that ‘spam’ button does in their email client.

Most people think it just deleted the email, not knowing it actually sends a complaint to their ISP, which thus gets forwarded on to the client that sent it.

You could import the list, send out what looks like an email confirmation link to sign them up to your newsletter that then actually migrates them to another list.

That’s possible, then they WOULD actually be opted in.

You could only send that ONE email to the list you import though, and even then you may get a few complaints.

Other than that, create a blog post that you could make members aware of asking them to sign up, or direct them to the widget sign up form you are implementing.

Not gonna happen overnight but the quicker you dod it, the quicker your list builds.