Can I send mass emails using my site's HTML form, PHP handler, & MySQL DB?

[neil_cnd]

Hi,

I don't know much about Mail Chimp but a fellow PHP developer on a
forum that I use suggested it might be a good solution for something
I'm trying to do.

I built a web site for a band. The site has a custom HTML form that
allows users to sign up for a mailing list by submitting their name
and email address. This information is stored on a MySQL database on
the web server.

I'm building an intranet for the band using a sub-domain on the same
web server. Once a band member logs in to the intranet they can click
a link to query the database and print out all of the registered names
and email addresses within the browser window. I've also written an
HTML form that I want the band members to be able to use to send mass
emails to the addresses in the databnase.

I haven't yet written a script to send the mass emails. I've been told
that using PHP's built in mail function to loop through a long list of
email addresses is unreliable. I'm wondering if there is a way to send
the email from the form along with the addresses in the DB to Chimp
Mail and then have Chimp Mail send out the mass email.

Am I on the right track, or am I misunderstanding how to use the
product?

If I'm on the right track, can someone please give me a description of
what steps I'd need to take to make this happen?

Thanks!

-Neil

[jesse]

Neil -
Sure, you should be able to get that setup. I would suggest that you
first get acquainted with using our service and how we do list
management:
http://www.mailchimp.com/features/build-manage-email-list/

Once you've done that, spend some time with the API documentation:
http://www.mailchimp.com/api/1.2/

listSubscribe, listBatchSubscribe, campaignCreate, and campaignSendNow
are all methods you'll end up using. The methods will make a lot more
sense if you've used our service via the web interface first.


jesse