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A mailing list is your single most powerful marketing tool. Every business needs one, "no ifs ands or buts". Your mailing list should be branded, meaning that your clients see your domain name in the "From" field of the mails you send out, and they should not have to endure advertisements that they would get on a free email list services such as Yahoogroups. No serious business should use a free mailing list service. If you purchase a web hosting package without a mailing list, you will probably end up paying as much for the mailing list as you are paying for the hosting. Every BestCommerceTools hosting plan includes a free installation of PHPList for managing your mailing list. You may also use the SendStudio professional autoresponder system by paying a modest one-time fee. What is PHPList? PHPList is a powerful open-source mailing list system that has all the features you would expect from a mailing list management system, including: - Send both text and html messages to your list from a web interface
- Configure an unlimited number of lists (or newsletters)
- Mass-subscribe / import leads capability
- Customize outgoing mails with name etc
- Request additional information during the subscribe process
- Filter broadcasts according to criteria
- And many additional features
What is SendStudio? This is a service that allows you to send out follow-up emails to your customers at programmed intervals, for example to deliver an ecourse, or automatically follow-up with people who subscribe to your mailing list. This is different from PHPList (that is included in our hosting) in that it will automatically send follow-up emails on the days you specify (ie, day 1 after signup etc). Studies reveal that most customers don't buy until at least the 5th contact, so this is a powerful marketing tools. This is the same service that many marketing companies sell for $20-30 a month. In addition to PHPList (free with our hosting account), we can provide a professional auto-responder system for just a one-time software license fee of $50. An auto-responder system differs from a standard newsletter system in that it can be programmed to send follow-up emails at programmed intervals (ie, one day after initial signup, etc). All internet marketers agree that effective automated email follow-up is an essential tool for your business. The system we use is based on the Interspire SendStudio software, which has all the features of subscription services costing a minimum of $200/year. Note: in order to protect our current clients from excessive emails originating from our server which may negatively impact delivery of their mails, we require a hosting contract for use of this service. We also require our clients to abide by our Spam policy. Here is the full feature set: - Everything that you need to run your email marketing campaigns - a list builder, subscription forms, autoresponders, newsletter editor, tracking, reports and more
- On-queue autoresponders. Create a series of unlimited text/HTML autoresponders and have SendStudio send them to your new subscribers automatically. It's like having a 24 hour, 7 day a week marketing team.
- Advanced tracking and reporting. SendStudio automatically tracks and reports how many subscribers open your emails, which links they click on, etc. Then, from the SendStudio control panel you have complete access to this tracking data in easy-to-view reports.
- Choice of single or double opt-in
- One-to-one personalization. Create an unlimited amount of "custom fields" that your subscribers can fill out, such as first name, sex, salary, etc. You can then use these to personalize your emails, which has been proven to increase reader response rates by as much as 600%!
- Works in all common web browsers. SendStudio 2004 works with all common web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla and other gecko-based browsers!
- Create emails in text, HTML or "multi-part" (text and HTML) formats. SendStudio will make sure that your subscribers email client automatically shows the format that is best suited for their PC -- automatically!
- Send and schedule newsletters via cron. Now newsletters, as well as autoresponders can be sent and scheduled without leaving your browser open.
- Send to huge mailing lists. Sending emails with SendStudio has been tested successfully with over 200,000 subscribers, so no matter how big your list grows, SendStudio can keep up.
- Automatic link tracking. All links in your newsletter can be tracked for click-thru stats which you can then view and download.
- Powerful targeted sending. Use SendStudio's built-in targeting to send emails only to subscribers who match certain criteria -- for example, only send an email to females over the age of 21 from California.
- 1-click bounce handling. Eradicate erroneous subscriber emails using SendStudio's 1-click bounce handling system. Simply send your newsletter, tell SendStudio how you want to handle the bounced emails, and SendStudio takes care of the rest!
- Dynamic unsubscribe links. With one click you can easily insert a link to unsubscribe at the bottom of your emails. In some countries, this is required by law. SendStudio automatically personalizes the unsubscribe link for each subscriber that receives your email!
- Easy to use HTML editor. Create your HTML newsletters using the integrated WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) HTML editor and create rich text, links, lists, etc directly through your web browser.
- Runs on auto-pilot. Let your visitors subscribe and unsubscribe from your lists automatically. Everything is processed in real-time, so you will never have to waste time manually adding or deleting subscribers from your mailing lists ever again.
- Upload and send attachments. Newsletters, templates and autoresponders all include full support for adding and sending attachments.
- Import subscribers from an existing database. Simply supply the database login details, choose which fields to map and SendStudio takes care of the importing.
- Customize subscription forms. Choose which custom fields appear on each subscription form that you create.
- Notification via email. Be notified via email when someone joins or leaves a mailing list.
- Easy to use. Developed with the end user in mind, SendStudio is simple to use and you can get started building your mailing list or sending emails in minutes.
The software can be purchased from our Packages and Prices page. |
