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E-newsletter Creation/delivery Software
Posted By: Noel on 9/2/2004 4:22 PM (CST) 75 Points
Greetings All!

We are considering a change from a printed newsletter to an e-newlsetter, and I was curious to know of your experiences with the various software/tools on the market to manage such an activity. This is a small publication to clients int B2B segment serving about 1500, and as such, we are not looking for the more expensive solutions. Frankly, we are new to this format, and really have little knowledge of the various software packages currently available. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated, preferably those you have direct experience with.

Posted by: SteveByrneBranding Member Response
9/2/2004 4:32 PM (CST)
Noel,

Here's a link to past questions on this subject (from search questions)

http://www.marketingprofs.com/ea/qst_searchResults.asp?action=go&qstCategor...

good luck, - Steve
 
Posted by: W.M.M.A. Member Response
9/2/2004 4:35 PM (CST)
As my graphic designer consultant first told me..."Do not use Publisher...nobody else does."

Good Luck.
 
Posted by: Paul Copcutt Accepted Answer
9/2/2004 4:40 PM (CST)
Noel

I have experience of Constant Contact and have been pleased with the offerings and also the statistics, costs are reasonable even when you get up to higher numbers.
Cost is around US$25 for 2500 subscribers and you can send as many e-mails in a month to those subscribers.

www.constantcontact.com

Others are

www.listbuilder.com run by Microsoft. $199 for 1,000 e-mails , $299 for 10,000.

www.1shoppingcart.com
$19 a month, includes a SPAM checker

www.ezezine.com
Free if less than 1,000 e-mails per week.

www.webvalance.com
$25 per month up to 30,000 e-mails per month.

I would suggest that you look at other e-zines you receive and see who they use and then take a look at those providors.

Good luck!
 
Posted by: Praf* Member Response
9/2/2004 4:51 PM (CST)
Great responses. I would add one more. Check out

www.aweber.com

When you send newsletters electronically you need to do a good job of list managememt. This is particularly important if you expect a fair amount of frequent changes to your list. All these services do apretty decent job of list management.

Praf
 
Posted by: Inactive Member Moderator Response
9/2/2004 7:30 PM (CST)
You might also try
http://www.myemma.com

They are really nice people and very competent.
 
Posted by: darcy.moen Member Response
9/2/2004 9:22 PM (CST)
Why rent? Why pay per e-mail?

Check out www.miro.com.au and have a look at their e-mail script called Oi! Oi rocks. If you have php, and mySQL installed on your webserver, you can own your own e-mail marketing system. You can add templates, or have a semi-talented HTML person make templates for you.

Or, check out 1-2-3 Broadcast.
http://www.activecampaign.com/12all/

Or check out Send Studio

http://www.interspire.com/sendstudio/

Octeh has OEMpro
http://www.octeth.com

Or, there is Listmessenger. http://www.listmessenger.com/ The free version is limited to 50-100 on the list. The paid for version is inexpensive.

There is some decent scripts in the opensource community, such as PHPlist

http://sourceforge.net/projects/phplist/

Can't much cheaper than free.

Alll are good, real good!

I've used all of these listed here, and a few more (but they cost a lot more, so I left them off because in my opinion...same features...more money). Shop around before settling in.

Darcy Moen (Customer Loyalty Network)
 
Posted by: pkemper* Accepted Answer
9/3/2004 2:24 AM (CST)
These are just some notes from the field...

Apart from selecting an email engine, you might also want to think about the following:

I have sent out a list of similar size to my clients every three weeks. Every time we would get approximately 20 invalid e-mail addresses, so our target audience would quickly shrink. Make sure you have a way to capture e-mail addresses in your other marketing activities and have sales people submit e-mail addresses as well.

You might want to consider text-only versions. 4% Of my list wanted text-only (and I sent this to mainly technical and management audiences in IT).

Do you want to track individual click-throughs? In that case you need an engine that can capture that information and provide statistics.

If you are using an engine without tracking and proper list management capabilities, make sure you personalize the subject line with a code. This makes it far easier to relate bounced messages back to your original e-mail list (in which you also have this code).

Don't put any addresses in the bcc: fields. Incoming email is usually bounced by spam filters if they contain addresses in the bcc: field.

Create short (1 or 2 paragraphs) items in your newsletter, with a link back to the full information on your web site and add a content-section. There are two reasons for it:
1. It allows people to quickly scan your news
2. If you have channel partners, they might want to place these items on their intranet and/or cut-and-paste this material in some of their own newsletters and communications.

If you know the areas that people are interested in, you might want to create several newsletters, focussing on their areas of interest. That way you can better build your brand and better move these people through the decision-making process. Of course, in the interst of up-sell, you would add a few items outside of their immediate interest area.
 
Posted by: Noel Author Response
9/3/2004 9:51 AM (CST)
Thank you all for all the great responses, they've been a big help. pkemper, thanks for imparting some of your personal experiences, you've outlined some good points to consider.
 
Posted by: OlivierT* Member Response
9/10/2004 8:56 PM (CST)
Our company is building an e-marketing tool that includes a powerful e-newsletter solution. The Service is far more powerful and scalable than Constant Contact.

We will launch it next month and are currently looking for beta testers. We would be interested in working for free with you on your first e-newsletter. We have no doubt you will continue with us for your following e-newsletters.

If you are interested, please have a look at my profile and contact me.
 


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