Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Hi andreas,

You might want to do a search for past questions similar to this one.

Some things to keep in mind:

* Have you thought about using a hosted email service or are you planning on sending emails inhouse?

* Do you have a dedicated mail server in your company?

* How often do you plan to email your list?

* There's plenty of great software out there, it would depend on your budget.

* I've been evaluating the Bronto Software recently and find it quite good and easy to use. (www.bronto.com)

* MarketingSherpa has a great report on selecting email software and service providers. It lists most of the major ESPs and email software out there that you should consider. (www.sherpastore.com)

Another point you might want to consider is managing expectations from this project. This sounds like you are putting in a lot of time, and I'll bet that Sr. Management has quite an interest in how this works out. Email marketing does not generate quite the response it once does - and it would be a shame if your boss had unrealistic expectations about the results, then blamed the "poor response" on you. Before sending the email, you might do some research on expected response, and get those figures out in the open.

Just seconding (or is it "thirding" or "fourthing?") the idea that you use an ASP for this.

If you're just starting out, try a service such as https://www.verticalresponse.com or https://www.constantcontact.com.

I get the impression, however, that these names are not all opted in. These services will generally not let you do an opt-out mailing. If you go ahead and do it anyway, my guess is that you will have very high bounce and unsubscribe rates, and they will cancel your service after the first mailing.

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that you'll now have a more or less "clean" list because you'll have removed most of the bounces and the unsubscribes. Of course, you'll still be sending an opt-out mail, which is a no-no in most legitimate email marketers' eyes.

However, you didn't ask for a lecture on ethics, so I won't give you one. The answer to your question, as I see it, is not to use desktop software at all and to use a Web-based ASP.

Good luck,

Paul

Hi Andreas,

Advice: As mentioned by all above, don't try to do this with inhouse software/server, outsource to a 3rd-party ASP. I can't think of one good reason to do this inhouse.

Also, don't let any data on sliding open rates mislead you. Due to reporting methodologies the actual reported numbers show slight slippage but in reality they are pretty good, especially when compared to other marketing tools.

Go to www.doubleclick.com for all this good info.

O.K. I have found that for most companies starting out that Constant Contact is hard to beat. 5000-10,000 subscribers will cost you $75.00 a month. 10,000-25,000 costs $150 a month. This is as inexpensive as you will you find for their feature set.

Which, speaking of , Constant Contact is certainly not as feature laden as say www.bluehornet or www.exacttarget, but this is something you are going to have to do an analysis of, that is your wants, needs and budget. You can always scale up.

I hope that helps, contact me offline if you need more help.

Definately use www.constantcontact.com. It is worth every dime.

If you want a program to use at no cost, go to www.download.com and get a program called "Group Mail Free". It has a totally customizable interface where you can send HTML or text, define separate groups, control the subject lines, track, etc.

The regular version is free, but the Pro version is less than $100 and rocks!

I still recommend constant contact because they already cover several bases and have tons of template to choose from/customize.

Good Luck!

Hi Andreas

Why not talk with David Rowell at The Travel Insider www.thetravelinsider.com - he is a travel agent who produces a weekly e-mail and he might be a potential customer.

I've referred him to relevant threads here in the past so he may even be an occasiobal participant.

His "Contact" page has e-mail and telephone contact details.

Good Luck.

ChrisB

In my company we tried ASP service for emails but decided to go inhouse. Several factors made us take this path, including the number of deliveries (the service we had sent emails on behalf of several companies and they got blacklisted often) and the price. By getting a software to use in-house we felt we had better control over the results and more flexibility.

We currently use Arial Software (www.arialsoftware.com) and it's been working great. :)