The market is bulging with various programs to assist e-mail marketers with newsletters, sales follow-up, and sending opt-in e-mail ads. In this issue I briefly survey some 70 different programs. I've tried to focus on the programs that are most popular with my small to medium business readers, though you'll spot some enterprise systems among these.
My survey is brief. I divide programs into three basic categories -- hosted, desktop, and CGI. For each, I list the program name, the company that developed it, a URL, and a sentence or two of notes taken from websites, often including the price range. (Note: I include information and feedback for spam software, but I refuse to give URLs to help these spam-enablers.) Many websites, particularly for enterprise-level programs, talk in vague generalities and don't mention price -- they want you to talk to a salesman -- so my notes reflect the
sparse information on those sites.
Early in 2002 I began to survey readers to give me their feedback on various e-mail marketing
programs they use. Here are the questions I asked so you'll understand the answers:
List Size
. About how many e-mail addresses are on the largest list you manage using this software program? This gives you an idea of the program's capability and use.
Employees
. How many people are employed by your organization? Here you get a
feel for the company making the evaluation and how it is suited for business their size.
Training Time Required
. About how many hours of supervision and experience would it take to train a person with average computer skills to send out (but not compose or lay out) your e-mailing, to the point that you would feel comfortable letting him or her do it without supervision? Choices were 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 5 hours, 10 hours, 15 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours, 40 hours, greater than 40 hours.
Customer Service
. How would you rate the level of customer service and responsiveness of the company that produced the program you are using?
We used a scale of 1 to 5 (5 represents excellent)
Overall Quality
. How would you rate the overall quality of the program?
(scale of 1 to 5)
Ease of Use
. How would you rate the ease-of-use of this program for a person with average computer skills?
(scale of 1 to 5)
Country
. Where are you located?
Strengths
. What do you like most about this e-mail list handling software? What are its strongest features, in your opinion?
Weaknesses
: What are the weaknesses you see in this program? What is most frustrating about using this program?
Missing?
What features are missing that you feel would improve this program's usefulness?
Not every respondent answered every question -- some dropped out along the way. For the most part, I kept whatever information was offered, even if some questions went unanswered. I thought you'd like to see the full feedback I received for any given product. I didn't try to smooth out the language or even spell check -- it's raw. Even so, I had to toss out a number of records that just weren't valid for one reason or another. I began with 619 responses and ended with a database of 447.
To give you an idea of what this looks like, here's a sample of some of the feedback for GotMarketing's Campaigner:
List Size:
5K to 25K
Empl:
26 to 100
Training:
1 hr
Cust Serv: 5
Qual: 5
Ease: 5
Country:
Canada
Strengths: customization reporting templates
Weaknesses: nothing - it meets my needs perfectly
Missing?
List Size:
100 to 1K
Empl:
2 to 6
Training:
hr
Cust Serv: 4
Qual: 5
Ease:
Country:
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Missing?
List Size:
100 to 1K
Empl:
one
Training:
2 hr
Cust Serv: 5
Qual: 4
Ease: 5
Country:
Canada
Strengths: My list is easy to update within the campaigner program. The newsletters are easy to create. My customers like the easy to read layout. The reports that are generated are extremely useful
Weaknesses: No spell check. I doesn't seem to search my whole data base for addresses just a portion of the data base.
Missing? Spell check
List Size:
5K to 25K
Empl:
7 to 25
Training:
10 hr
Cust Serv: 4
Qual: 3
Ease: 4
Country:
Canada
Strengths: The reporting feature
Weaknesses: Duplicates are not removed
Missing? No comment
The brief survey of programs is open to all, while the valuable feedback -- about 200 pages worth in 55 webpages -- is accessible only to my paid Web Commerce Today subscribers. This fall,
I plan to package the information for sale as an e-book.
I haven't rated the programs, but you can see which are most popular by the number of user feedback comments. I've reviewed several of the programs in the past (www.wilsonweb.com/reviews/). Also see my "Comparison Chart of Popular Small Business
Desktop E-Mail List Handling Programs" which includes MailWorkZ Broadc@st HTML, Email Workshop, 4OfficeAutomation EmailUnlimited, Extractor Pro, Gammadyne Mailer, Infacta Group Mail, MessageMedia MailKing, Corey Rudl's Mailloop, Online Automation Postmaster, WorldCast, and WorldMerge. www.wilsonweb.com/wmt7/desktop_comparison.htm
I hope this compilation aids you in your selection of e-mail marketing
programs.
