Newsletter Software: GroupMail Business Edition

Having a newsletter is an important part of running a website. Like an RSS feed, it can keep you in contact with your reader base, capture their interest and tickle them to come back to your site again and again. I like to use newsletters in addition to RSS feeds because a newsletter allows you to deliver information to your readers in a pro-active manner. You dictate what your subscribers will see and when they will see it - you control the format and layout and you determine the content. This is especially important if you have off-topic or unrelated posts that wouldn't be read otherwise, or something that you really want to promote. By including it as a lead-in to a newsletter, you can proactively manage the level of user interest.

Types of software

Newsletter software is a gamble. I've subscribed to online services offered by GoDaddy, I've tried free downloadable web tools that run off of the webserver with an html interface, and I've used standalone desktop applications. For my money, the latter has been the most effective by far.

What to look for

When choosing newsletter software, ease of use quickly comes to mind. You want to be able to:

add users,
manage an exclusion list (aka an unsubscribe list),
auto-format emails in html with a text version sent to those readers that prefer text (via a two-part MIME message).
have access to templates that will help you avoid designing or redesigning a periodic newsletter
use a scheduler to send your message at specified times are also worthwhile.

What I use

As I mentioned above, howtoadvertise.net's newsletter is run off of a desktop application called GroupMail, which is produced by Infacta. We're currently using the Business Edition v.5.00.814 to manage newsletter campaigns for this site as well as four or five others. GroupMail is a fantastic application and I can't image delivering any sort of periodic newsletter without it. The interface is intuitive (unlike many of the web applications I've tried), all of its actions are dictated by the operator (unlike the newsletter service offered by GoDaddy.com) and its support and updates so far have been more than adequate.

Things that could use improvement

HTML Editor

I'm comfortable writing my own html and want to design my own template from custom code rather than in a pre-fab template or with the GroupMail wysiswyg editor. GroupMail does allow me to edit the html for newsletters directly, but the interface is a little confining.
Update - I've been able to address this issue with a simple and fairly elegant solution. I designed a newsletter layout online so I can cut and paste the source code from my browser into GroupMail's HTML editor. Here's the example import newsletter I use for Informed Trade International. The really nice part about this is that I can use all of the PHP and RSS elements that the site is based on to auto-generate a newsletter from my most recent postings. A few quick edits to add in any additional info and it's ready to go.

The exclusion list

Although it's not too difficult to cut and paste unsubscribe requests via the Windows Clipboard import function, I haven't figured out a way to automate the process. This may just be a matter of setting up a database to accept unsubscribe requests and have GroupMail import from that database. Like I said, I haven't set this up yet and it may require some programming that's not feasible for most website operators. In the meatime I'm getting along just fine without it.

Conclusion

GroupMail is flexible and robust newsletter software. Its prices range from $99.95 (8/2/06) for the Personal Edition, to $249.95 for the Business Edition. If you're serious enough to need desktop software to manage a newsletter, I recommend spending the extra money and getting the features that aren't available in the Personal Edition. It's a one-time software purchase rather than a subscription (which I always prefer) and it will quickly become one of the most utilized programs in your software arsenal.

Note: If you need another review of GroupMail, check out this one over at SitePoint.