Easy e-Newsletter-ing

Stacy Kontrabecki, MBA  Jan. 2007

You’ve received them, and read them, so you know they work. Beautiful email-delivered newsletters and promotions with colors and pictures and hotlinks to websites. It doesn’t take a computer programmer to generate professional e-communications; just a half hour and some copy and you’re publishing like the pros!

There are three ways people are managing their email lists these days: Web-based list servers, website databases installed on the company website, and local email client address books like those found in Thunderbird, Outlook Express and Eudora.

Local management of email addresses have limitations, as you’ve probably found out. Many servers do not let you send messages with more than a couple dozen recipients 1.) because it costs them money/bandwidth and 2.) black-lists the server as an originator of spam, which your message becomes, de-facto, above a certain number of recipients. Even if you’re lucky enough to find a server that does not institute caps on the number of recipients, you still risk the likelihood that your message will be rejected by your recipients server as spam and never reach your reader. 

For organizations that have their own website, check with your internet service provider (ISP) to see if your service plan includes the ability to install databases. If so, there are several free databases that your website designer/programmer can install for you that don’t require a monthly fee. Realize, though, that if you have a bandwidth cap instituted by your web host, sending a high number of list messages may eat up your monthly allocation and cost you over-run fees or risk your website being shut down. Check with your host to see how they deal with the issue of bandwidth. (See next month’s article on web databases to learn more about bandwidth.)

Web-based list hosting is becoming extremely popular because of its ease and value. Most web-based services have a free introductory trial period, some are free to use if your list of recipients is small, and others are pay-as-you-go vs. subscription based. Consider the benefits and drawbacks of subscribing to an e-mailing list service and give some of the service vendors (listed below) a try.

Pros:

Professional looking communications Template –driven graphic designs with live web links, perfect formatting and logo branding – without needing to hire a web designer. Pick a standard template or have one design especially for your organization.

Guarantee that your message will be accepted by your recipient’s mail server and not bounce back as spam. Whenever a standard email is addressed to multiple recipients, a “This is spam” flag goes up when that message is received by the recipients email server and that message is often times not delivered . Email list services are usually registered with the major email servers like AOL, Yahoo, and Hotmail so your messages are pre-approved for delivery.

Bandwidth preservation Messages are sent through the host’s website and do not utilize your company’s personal website bandwidth.

Ability to manage multiple lists One recipient can be a member of several lists and with most service providers, will not receive duplicate messages if you choose to send your communication to more than one list that they are subscribed to.

Opt-in, opt-out functionality Your subscribers can easily get on your list, get off your list, and change their email address by themselves.

Archives Special features like searchable web archives preserve your communications for web-based referencing in the future.

Campaign analysis After you email your campaign you can track how many recipients opened your message, what weblinks they clicked on and what articles were read.

Bounced message management Automatically manage addresses that bounced back as invalid without filling your email Inbox. Invalid addresses will be flagged as such and not utilized in future campaigns.

Cons:

Monthly fees Each host prices their services differently. Some charge monthly fees based on the total number of emails stored in their database, regardless of how many campaigns you sent out. Some charge monthly based on how many emails you send out in a month. Some charge one-time fees for each campaign without locking you in to a monthly commitment. Some do not charge at all if your list is short.

Readership With the hundreds of emails people receive on a daily basis, it is hard to be sure that your message reaches your recipient. At least with a paper mailing, you know your message is at least looked at and dealt with.

Web-Based Subscription Services: ConstantContact.com, Mail-List.com, BigList.com, MainStreetMail.com, GraphicMail.com

Website Database Add-ons: PHPlist.com, ListMessenger.com






Last Updated: 2/15/07