Summary. The distribution of email newsletters typically requires mailing list management software or service providers. Below are some options to consider. Programs such as QuickBooks allow for mailings to go out to customers and supporters, but sometimes an online service works better.
- ConstantContact.com – “Constant Contact®, Inc. helps small businesses, associations, and nonprofits connect with their customers, clients, and members. Launched in 1998, Constant Contact champions the needs of small organizations and provides them with an easy and affordable way to build successful, lasting customer relationships. Constant Contact’s leading email marketing and online survey tools—supported by its expert personal coaching and support—help all types of small businesses and organizations create professional-looking email newsletters and insightful online surveys and begin a dialogue with their customers. Today, more than 250,000 customers worldwide trust Constant Contact to help them connect with their audience.”
- Google Groups – This is Google’s free online community building and collaboration discussion board service. When configured properly, it’s possible to use a Yahoo Group as a newsletter subscription service.
- iContact.com – “iContact has whitelist agreements with major ISPs so our clients can enjoy industry-leading deliverability. A third-party company, Pivotal Veracity, scores our email deliverability rates between 98%-99%. Track the performance of your email blasts at a glance with our charts and graphs that are populated in real time. Use one of our 300+ professionally designed email newsletter templates or one of your own for beautiful permission-based email marketing campaigns. Easily set up, organize, and leverage your mailing list to boost your email marketing into overdrive! iContact combines sophisticated features such as surveys, autoresponders, and RSS feeds into one easy-to-use all-inclusive product.”
- inJesus.com – Primarily designed for churches and ministries, the about page explains that “inJesus provides a web service that makes communication easy for Christian ministries. Ministry Groups on inJesus keep their members informed and involved using simple, powerful tools like: e-mail group management, message archives on your site, and placement in our searchable directory.”
- MailChimp.com – “We make it easy to send email newsletters to your customers, manage your subscriber lists, and track campaign performance. Unlike some of our competitors, we don’t ‘dumb things down.’ We take extremely powerful tools that sophisticated marketers use (like segmentation, a/b testing, and ROI tracking), and we make them accessible to anyone. And because our platform uses an open API, it’s easy to integrate internal systems (like Salesforce) and web applications (like Magento and Drupal) with our email marketing engine. That’s why over 175,000 users, who range from small 1-person startups to Fortune 500 corporations use MailChimp.”
- Mailman – Open source Linux/Unix mailing list software. This is a server-side application that should be installed and managed by advanced users.
- PHPList.com – A free open source newsletter management application. This is a server-side application that should be installed and managed by advanced users.
- Yahoo Groups – Yahoo offers a free online community building and collaboration discussion board service. When configured properly, it’s possible to use a Yahoo Group as a newsletter subscription service.
Video. Below are two videos with Gregory Johnson discussing mailing list management.