I have been asked to setup a double opt-in email newsletter subscription service for a client. The client has a new site and has a very small email list (maybe only 20-30!). They are very keen to build up this list by supplying relevant, interesting and valuable content through a monthly newsletter. So it needs to be something that can start of very small and grow quickly. I reckon we could get 2-300 subscibers quite easily.
The service needs to be real simple to use and inexpensive. Would you recommend buying software that sits on the PC or use an online service? I am inclined to think the latter and have had a quick look at www.aweber.com and www.campaignmonitor.com. Does anyone here have any experience of these or similar services? Anything less expensive (than £15 per month) for example?
Email marketing is a good strategy to take a start and let others know about your website. But a list of 20-30 users is not gonna do the work. Try to target 100’s of users at a time.
Awber, Vertical Response and Campaign Monitor are the common place tools in this field for your list size and price class. The benefit of using a service is of course that they handle all of the logistics of insuring your email is sent properly and delivered, rather than it being on you to configure. Other than that it’s just a matter of interface, features, analytics and pricing trade off.
Blue Sky - I’m no longer a fan of Aweber, but like Ted I think Vertical Response and Campaign Monitor offer great solutions along with companies like Constant Contact, iContact and MailChimp.
All of those services are quite affordable if you’re starting out with a small list, but if cost is really an issue, MailChimp will give you a free account until you hit 1000 subscribers and you can send to them up to 6x a month I believe.
Almost all of those services offer the same basic features and are rather close in price, but you should look them over and maybe choose 2 or 3 that you can try out and see which you like best (almost every ESP offers some kind of free trial today)
