[Hidden-tech] mailing list services

[Jeff Rutherford]

Jonathan,

 

I read this article a while back. Not sure if you want to investigate
this. Just FYI.

 

A New Outlook on E-Mail Marketing
> > >   E-Mail Marketing 

 
<http://www.clickz.com/RealMedia/ads/click_lx.cgi/clickz/clickz/www.clic
kz.com/experts/em_mkt/em_mkt/article/2073684412/sitetext-1/OasDefault/eM
ail_Labs_ClickzQ1Q206_1q/emaillabs_textlink.gif/396666613132633934343764
63353930>  

BY Karen Gedney
<http://www.clickz.com/experts/contact_author/index.php/67053_3609766>
| May 31, 2006 

I remember the tedium of sending out my first e-newsletter. Not
realizing how important (and inexpensive) it would be to have an
e-newsletter provider broadcast it for me, I'd send it out in batches
from Outlook as blind carbon copies (BCCs) to groups of people. 

Needless to say, I eventually gave that e-newsletter up, despite its
popularity with my readers and the business I derived from it. The
homegrown approach was too unwieldy to be sustained. It felt ridiculous
after a while. (I eventually launched another e-newsletter via an e-mail
service provider.) 

So I was interested in a case study about how the New Hampshire
International Trade Resource Center <http://www.exportnh.com>  (NHITRC)
uses PoliteMail <http://www.politemail.com>  to send e-mail campaigns
right from Outlook. 

Turns out that prior to using PoliteMail, Anka Jacobs, executive
training manager for Southern New Hampshire University at the NHIRTC,
was sending e-mail to 2,000 clients in the same prehistoric way I'd been
doing it. 

The NHIRTC office works with New Hampshire companies that import and
export products, so it often has news about important topics, such as
increases in export duties, that has to be delivered. 

Without a budget for monthly e-mail services or the time to learn a new
e-mail program, Jacob's division was asked to use the e-mail application
they already had in place: Microsoft Outlook. 

"We had to break our list into chunks of 250, and basically BCC groups
of people," said Jacobs. "It took time to cut and paste from the Excel
file." A lot of those e-mail messages bounced, filling her inbox with
undeliverable notices. "Here was this great list of people who want and
need information from us, yet we couldn't effectively get to them." 

Outlook Changes Overnight

Jacobs began using an early release version of PoliteMail in January
2006. Her whole e-mail marketing approach changed overnight. 

"When I found PoliteMail, I could finally make Outlook do things I
wished it would do all along. The coolest thing is to be able to
personalize every message with the person's name." 

Their IT administrator was skeptical at first. But PoliteMail
efficiently stores only one copy of the message in the user's sent items
folder, no matter what the list size. And the e-mail goes out through
the state's own e-mail server. "Our IT guy liked the fact that he didn't
need to do anything with the mail server and that the data was securely
stored on PoliteMail's database server and fed into Outlook," explained
Jacobs. 

Productivity Up, Costs Down

The time Jacobs and her team had to spend on letting their membership
know about relevant news declined radically. "Mailings that used to take
me hours now take 10 minutes and actually arrive at their intended
destination," said Jacobs. 

Jacobs now focuses on e-mail analytics in some of her newfound time.
"Finally, I can see what's happening to all the e-mail we send since the
numbers come right into Outlook," she told me. 

The ability to see a client's e-mail activity history provides a way to
improve the client relationship. "When a client calls or replies to a
message, with one click I can see all the mailings they received, what
they opened or didn't, what attachments they've read, if they visited
the links or forwarded the message," she said. "This lets me know what
to talk about, and what they might know or what they might be calling
about. And that makes for better service." 

Better Communication Equals More Revenues

"Our seminar attendance has gone up by nearly 30 percent," she said.
"We've also seen an increase in press coverage, probably because
journalists actually receive our e-mails. 

"When I send out a critical announcement, PoliteMail allows me to grab
the unopened segment of the list and resend it. I can also send timely
follow-up to just the people who expressed interest in a specific
seminar topic. 

"PoliteMail has basically changed the entire way we communicate with our
clients," said Jacobs. "It provides a way to have a much bigger outreach
and impact from my desktop with little cost. The fact that I can do all
of this from Outlook -- a program I've been using for years -- just made
the whole process that much easier. 

Our e-mail now looks more professional and gets delivered. Our open rate
tops 61 percent." 

 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net
[mailto:hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net] On Behalf Of
Jonathan Dill
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 4:24 PM
To: hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
Subject: [Hidden-tech] mailing list services

 

   ** Be a Good Dobee and help the group, you must be counted to post .

   ** Fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.

 

 

Hello folks,

 

I maintain a few Mailman servers, but at times this can be a 

high-maintenance operation for various reasons.  I am looking into 

possibly reselling mailing list hosting for certain cases, like 

non-techie customers who want to send newsletters to 500-2,000 

subscribers, but the tech support has to be very good and responsive, 

and the web interface should be easy for a non-techie user to use.  

Listbox looks good, but I am not sure if they have a partnership 

program.  I am looking for services for a fee without advertising where 

the e-mail can appear to come from the sender's own domain (not from the


list hosting service).

 

Does anybody have any recommendations?

 

Alternatively, I may look into ways to "dumb down" the Mailman 

interface, or alternative mailing list software that will be easier to 

support for non-techie users.  Or I could just raise my rates to cover 

what it really takes to provide support.  I'm hoping to find some middle


ground that will be a better deal for the customer as well as less 

headaches for me.

 

Thanks,

Jonathan

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