Email distribution companies

At $work, we have a newsletter that goes out weekly and
frankly, it's
becoming a bit of a pain to manage, we just don't have the
time to
fiddle with tweaking mailservers.

The newsletter is currently quite small, readership of about
4000, but
over time it's going to grow and for less hassle, it would
be nice to
stick with the same company.

Can anyone recommend a decent company for taking care of
email
distribution like this, on a relatively small scale?

Thanks,
--James

Hi james,

Not sure if this is what you mean but, we use campaign
monitor[0]. You  
do the work, create a campaign and upload the assets for it,
then they  
do the sending and reporting for you.

[0] http://www.campaignmon
itor.com

HTH,
Adeola.

On 9 May 2008, at 11:16, James Laver wrote:

> At $work, we have a newsletter that goes out weekly and
frankly, it's
> becoming a bit of a pain to manage, we just don't have
the time to
> fiddle with tweaking mailservers.
>
> The newsletter is currently quite small, readership of
about 4000, but
> over time it's going to grow and for less hassle, it
would be nice to
> stick with the same company.
>
> Can anyone recommend a decent company for taking care
of email
> distribution like this, on a relatively small scale?
>
> Thanks,
> --James

James Laver wrote:
> At $work, we have a newsletter that goes out weekly and
frankly, it's
> becoming a bit of a pain to manage, we just don't have
the time to
> fiddle with tweaking mailservers.
> 
> The newsletter is currently quite small, readership of
about 4000, but
> over time it's going to grow and for less hassle, it
would be nice to
> stick with the same company.
> 
> Can anyone recommend a decent company for taking care
of email
> distribution like this, on a relatively small scale?

We use Campaign Monitor for the delivery
(www.campaignmonitor.com) - no 
fiddling with mail servers and they can deal with de-duping
the list, 
subs & unsubs.

They have some nifty tools for spam testing your mailout
too.

Highly recommended if you want to manage the creation and
send of the 
newsletter yourselves, from a creative point of view.

There are plenty of companies that will manage that bit of
it for you 
too (including mine) but that may be more money than you
want to spend.

S.

On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:24 AM, Adeola Awoyemi
<adeolacreativeadea.com> wrote:
> Hi james,
>
> Not sure if this is what you mean but, we use campaign
monitor[0]. You do
> the work, create a campaign and upload the assets for
it, then they do the
> sending and reporting for you.
>
> [0] http://www.campaignmon
itor.com
>
> HTH,
> Adeola.
>


Hi Adeola,

This looks promising.

Basically we have a newsletter production system that will
dump the
html for the newsletter and we just need a quick way of
sending it.

The ideas are to save us time maintaining a mailserver and
perhaps add
simple tracking of who is or is not opening it. The list
must be
subscribed to but it would be nice to have readership
statistics
because inevitably some people will stop reading.

Thanks,
--James

On 9 May 2008, at 11:35, James Laver wrote:

> On Fri, May 9, 2008 at 11:24 AM, Adeola Awoyemi
<adeolacreativeadea.com 
> > wrote:
>> Not sure if this is what you mean but, we use
campaign monitor[0].  
>> You do
>> the work, create a campaign and upload the assets
for it, then they  
>> do the
>> sending and reporting for you.
>>
>> [0] http://www.campaignmon
itor.com
>
> This looks promising.
>
> Basically we have a newsletter production system that
will dump the
> html for the newsletter and we just need a quick way of
sending it.
>
> The ideas are to save us time maintaining a mailserver
and perhaps add
> simple tracking of who is or is not opening it. The
list must be
> subscribed to but it would be nice to have readership
statistics
> because inevitably some people will stop reading.


Yes. As Simon mentioned earlier, they handle all the
tracking and  
reporting for you so it makes things a lot easier. Another
thing is  
that they also have APIs (in many languages and Perl) for
managing  
subscriber lists and also support server authentication for
users who  
are very 'cautious' about who they receive email from.

Have a browse around their site. They have lots of docs and
code  
samples to download, so this might just be the thing you
need.

Good luck,
Adeola.

On 9 May 2008, at 12:11, Adeola Awoyemi wrote:

> Yes. As Simon mentioned earlier, they handle all the
tracking and  
> reporting for you so it makes things a lot easier.
Another thing is  
> that they also have APIs (in many languages and Perl)
for managing  
> subscriber lists and also support server authentication
for users  
> who are very 'cautious' about who they receive email
from.
>
> Have a browse around their site. They have lots of docs
and code  
> samples to download, so this might just be the thing
you need.
>
> Good luck,
> Adeola.

Thanks to yourself and to Simon, I think we're going to go
ahead with  
CM, it looks brilliant.

Cheers,
--James

On 9 May 2008, at 11:35, Simon Wilcox wrote:
> We use Campaign Monitor for the delivery
(www.campaignmonitor.com) -
> no fiddling with mail servers and they can deal with
de-duping the
> list, subs & unsubs.

This looks like really good stuff - I'm wondering about
using it for a
charity I work with. However what I can't find on their site
are any
comments regarding UK/EU data protection legislation.

So if I export my list of spam targets^w^wvalued (potential)
customers
to this site in Australia am I in compliance with the DP
regulations?

     Nigel.

--
[ Nigel Metheringham             Nigel.MetheringhamInTechnology.com ]
[ - Comments in this message are my own and not ITO
opinion/policy - ]

On 9 May 2008, at 11:35, Simon Wilcox wrote:
> We use Campaign Monitor for the delivery
(www.campaignmonitor.com) - 
> no fiddling with mail servers and they can deal with
de-duping the 
> list, subs & unsubs.

Another option I've used for customers is:
http://www.mailchimp.com

http://surveymonkey.com/



Regards, Peter
http://perl.dragonstaff
.co.uk

The company we use at $work is Constant Contact (
http://www.constantco
ntact.com/).  They manage subscribe lists, including
opt-ins and opt-outs.  They provide very detailed statistics
about the
e-mail campaigns: how many opens, reads, forwards,
click-throughs; and their
user interface is very simple.

The only downside is that they don't have APIs to import
messages, but if
you have a script that just spits out the HTML for the
e-mail, it would be
incredible easy to copy/paste.

We have been using it for the last few years, and have been
very satisfied.

On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 3:20 AM, Peter Edwards <peterdragonstaff.com>
wrote:

> On 9 May 2008, at 11:35, Simon Wilcox wrote:
> > We use Campaign Monitor for the delivery
(www.campaignmonitor.com) -
> > no fiddling with mail servers and they can deal
with de-duping the
> > list, subs & unsubs.
>
> Another option I've used for customers is:
> http://www.mailchimp.com

> http://surveymonkey.com/

>
>
> Regards, Peter
> http://perl.dragonstaff
.co.uk
>
>
>


-- 
Jonathan Lloyd
(714) 328-3249