Delivering Your Email Newsletter

After creating your email newsletter, you face thedecide whether you want to do it yourself, or have
challenge of delivery. With a printed newsletter, there'ssomeone else do it for you. If you plan to do it yourself,
usually only one method of widespread distribution: thethen you need a dedicated mailing list program. A
post office.couple of well-known providers are Dada Mail and
Fortunately, though, publishers of email newslettersMailLoop. To find other mailing programs, enter the
have several choices. Let's now work our wayphrase "mailing software" (with or without the quotation
through this small jungle, and try to remember thatmarks) in a search engine.
although these choices force us to do extra research,Of course, it's much easier to have someone else do
they also give us many more options than we havethe mailing for you, and that's where we're going next,
with printed newsletters.since few of us have the expertise or time to do it
The first choice is between manual and automatedourselves.
mail management. The manual approach is how many,Full service providers take care of all, or almost all the
if not most, email newsletters get started. And, it's awork for you. You fill in a few forms, make a few
good system as long as the mailing list remains small,choices, and then they take over and do the rest.
say something less than 100 or 200 names (dependingThose duties include adding and removing names,
on how efficient you are at managing your emailsending the mail, and handling mail that can't be
program). You can do this with an email program likedelivered (expect as many as 5% of messages to
Outlook Express or Eudora.'bounce' back after each mailing, once your list begins
But, if your list is growing, you'll soon grow impatientto grow).
with the amount of time it takes to manually add andSo, if you've decided to use a full service provider, you
remove subscribers, as well as to send the newsletter.next have to decide whether to use a free service or
For example, you might need to divide your list intopay-for-service provider. Again, free generally works
parts, and send out a series of mailings rather than justwell when your list is small, and grows more
one, to keep the size down.problematic as the number of subscribers increases.
That's when it's time to check out the automatedFree services offer many of the same services as
approach, using mailing list managers. These programsthe commercial services, but don't charge a fee. The
and services come in several forms. By the way --catch? They place an ad in your e-mail newsletter. If
and you'll need to know this when you go looking foryou sell advertising the free service takes away a
an automated service -- the difference between anrevenue spot. Or they restrict the number of
announcement list and a discussion list.subscribers or the number of mailouts. Services I've
An announcement list is essentially one way, whichused include Topica, MailerMailer, and at the moment, I
takes in most regular newsletters, or ezines. You areuse ResponseBot. Again, you can find other services
the only person allowed to send a message to theby using a search engine or directory.
people who have subscribed. You're also probably theOne of the great advantages of using free services is
only person who knows the email addresses of thethe opportunity to try out different services before
subscribers.making a commitment. Test drive each one for a few
However, if you want to make it interactive, withissues to find out whether or not you like it, then make
recipients allowed to post contributions, as well asyour choice.
receive them, then you need a discussion list. For mostSumming up, finding your way through the delivery
of us, though, an announcement list is the best startingchoices can be a big job. But, be grateful for the
point for a newsletter.choices, and use free versions to find out which works
Now, if you have chosen to automate, you need tobest for you.