Email Newsletter Software
Foreword By The Author
Email newsletters, sometimes known as e-newsletters, online newsletters or more commonly nowadays ezines, fulfill exactly the same purpose as their hard copy equivalents in the ‘real world’ and, like them, have software designed for them particularly. They are (usually) regular bulletins sent to a well-defined group of potential readers that contain news, information and/or written coverage of events relevant to that group. Email marketing for small businesses is extremely popular due to its potential for inexpensive promotions in an environment where strict rules exist to prohibit many forms of unsolicited contact by email (known as spam).
Mike Alexander
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Opt-In Email Marketing
Ezine publishers should therefore always use opt-in email marketing by inviting potential subscribers to ‘opt in’ to their newsletter’s mailing list, usually by means of a form on their website. That then allows them to legitimately contact such subscribers by email on a regular basis. Using an opt-in mailing list is now the only acceptable form of address list in use online. Double opt-in means that the applicant is not put on a list until he replies to an email asking for his confirmation that it was indeed his wish to join.
Communicating With Groups
It needs to be remembered that newsletters of all kinds are by far the most powerful way to communicate with a group—any group—on a regular basis (by ‘group’, I mean any bunch of people who share something in common). Members of a family, for instance, or club, church etc. Employees, volunteers (for a non-profit organization), customers, clients, prospects—each of these groups is a perfect candidate for a regular newsletter. A group might be tightly-knit, such as a geographic community (group of dwellings, a whole town, etc) or they might be scattered across the country (or even the world) but still be a group with something in common, like the disabled, car enthusiasts, coin collectors, young mothers and so on. Virtually anybody who needs to communicate with such a group should seriously consider using some sort of newsletter software to help make it easier. A publishing program (such as Microsoft Publisher etc) should be considered for paper newsletters or one of the many types of e-newsletter software for an online one.
Paper Or Electronic?
So how do you decide whether you should publish your newsletter online or as a traditional hard copy? Well, it’s simple really. We don’t differentiate between newsletters printed on paper, ‘ezines’ transmitted electronically, or static web newsletters, either. We believe that a newsletter is a newsletter regardless of how it’s delivered to the reader so we cover them all. So it’s all a matter of delivery. If the readership is widely spread geographically, and/or they all have computers and are online, then obviously an ezine is the way to go. After all, there is very little cost involved. On the other hand, if they all reside within the same local area and/or very few of them are online, then a hard copy newsletter with all its related expenses is nevertheless the obvious solution.
Types Of Email Newsletters
Once you’ve decided on an ezine rather than a hard copy newsletter, you then need to consider the two different types of email format available to you.
Plain Text
There are a number of pros and cons to using plain text but the most noticeable disadvantage to most people is that plain text is just that—plain. In other words it cannot be formatted to display different font sizes, styles or colors and doesn’t allow the inclusion of graphics, etc. On the other hand, it is much more secure and generally free from the threat of viruses and other malware.
HTML
HTML, on the other hand, is fully configurable and can also incorporate hyperlinked phrases that hide the actual URL (such as ‘Click Here’). This allows the list owner to create attractive and appealing emails that look and respond in exactly the same way as web pages, and can do everything that they do including the display of graphics. This is not surprising as HTML is the language of the World Wide Web. The downside is that they also contain the same security holes. This makes HTML emails a particularly attractive communications media to those with malicious intent since, unlike a website owner, they can easily spoof (forge) someone else’s email address as the sender and cover their own tracks. One of the resulting downsides for newsletter publishers is that legitimate HTML newsletters are more prone to aggressive handling by anti-spam software.
Online Newsletter Software
There are a number of e-mail newsletter software applications available but first you have to decide whether you want to publish in plain text or in HTML, as explained above.
Plain Text Email Software
Plain text emails can be created using a text editor, such as Notepad, or more commonly, an email client configured to produce ‘text-only’ emails. All the popular email clients, such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Eudora etc can do this and they use ASCII, the built-in language that all computers use to produce the symbols, characters and numbers represented by the keys on a keyboard.
HTML Email Software
Ezine software for HTML is a little more involved but there is an abundance of HTML newsletter software available that makes composing HTML emails a breeze. Most popular email clients, as mentioned above, can be configured to code your emails in HTML, as can some Web Editors too. You can also find proprietary HTML email software by doing a simple online search. Last, but by no means least, take note of The Ezine Machine that is part of the ClipCopy Content Solutions site and can be seen at http://www.clipcopy.com.
© 2000 Mike Alexander (Revised 2009), All Rights Reserved
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