Partly to be helpful, and partly to do a bit of profile-raising, I have been thinking of putting together a regular (weekly or fortnightly) email newsletter, full of social web news, views and other tidbits. It might go some way to filling the need for the govweb group blog I mooted earlier, though I should imagine it would be written in sufficiently broad terms to make it applicable to non government folk too. I think there are a number of valuable things about email lists like this, as opposed to a site:
- People use their email all day everyday, pretty much, so if they register, they will always see the emails in their inboxes
- If I stick to plain text, I don’t need to worry too much about accessibility and whether things render well in Internet Explorer 4
- People see email as work, the web as play
My newsletter will feature a few regular sections:
- A feature on a recent cool bit of webbery from a public or third sector organisation
- A roundup on news and development in the social web space
- An introduction to a social web site or service
- A multi-part how-to guide (eg setting up a blog, or a wiki)
There are a number of ways of setting something like this up, and I have been playing around with some of them. Here’s what I have found.
1. Do It Yourself
It would be the most simple option to gather in email addresses via a HTML form on a page on this blog, store them in a text file, then write the emails in my mail client, and paste in the email addresses to the BCC field and hit send. Unsubcribes would have to be done manually, and any analysis of subscriber numbers, etc, would have to be done in a spreadsheet or something. Also, there may be issues with the emails getting past spam filters, etc, as I use gmail to power my emails. I would also have to make sure I don’t use any funky formatting in my emails so that they can be read easily in different mail clients. So, this option is easy to get up and running, but difficult to manage and maintain, and there may be access problems. It’s cost free, though.
2. Use Mailman
Mailman is a remarkably configurable mailing list manager, and (like all the best things in life) is open source. I could set up a one-way mailing list, allow people to sign up to it as they pleased, and likewise unsubscribe. One of the problems with Mailman, though, is the interface which is used to manage the service and through which users can change their settings, which can seem a little unfriendlyto the uninitiated. To set it all up as a one way service would mean quite a bit of messing about to remove certain options from view, etc. So, whie this option might make some things easier, it will add complications elsewhere. Again, though, this would be free for me to use.
3. Use a dedicated service
The third option would be to use a service to manage my list of subscribers and to handle the sending of the emails themselves. They provide statistics, too, so I can track which newsletters are more popular, etc. These services also provide the ability to send HTML or rich text emails, making them easier on the eye and easier for most people to navigate. Given my target audience, though, I am tempted to stick to plain text – ugly but pretty much guaranteed to work! Some of the services I have looked at include MailBuild (suggested by Steph), AWeber (recommended by Chris Garrett) and Blue Sky Factory (used by Chris Brogan). All look pretty good. The obvious disadvantage is that they will cost me money, but they all need quite a bit of time dedicated to them to get set up properly.
So there we are. I think I am going to go for one of the dedicated services, but not sure which just yet. Of course the real challenge will be to produce regular, quality content that people will want to read, but by wittering on about which tools I am going to use I can put that one off for a day or too!
If anyone has any feedback on the ideas I have set out here, please leave them in the comments. And if you would like to be a recipient of the inaugral newsletter, say so in the comments or drop an email to [email protected] and I will add you to the list. Ta!
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“People see email as work, the web as play”
Proof, if needed, that people are stupid.
I’ve been having exactly the same thoughts regarding the low carbon communities network, currently doing all the mailings manually which takes forever, as a non techie I wasn’t really aware of the other options out there so now I can go and explore. Stick me on your mailing list too please, sounds like it will be really useful to me!
Andy – Heh, as I read somewhere recently, imagine how stupid the average person is. Then consider that half the population are more stupid than that. How depressing!
Tracey – pleased to be of help. I’ll stick you on my list!
We’ve been trialling Constant Contact. Let me know if you want access to test it.
Hey Dave,
Mathew from MailBuild (and Campaign Monitor) here. If you need any help with either of our newsletter sending systems, just fire me an email.
The difference between them: With Campaign Monitor you can import a complete HTML page and send it. With MailBuild you build templates and then can add content and send them through the application.
Both are free to try out, and actually pretty quick to setup. Check http://www.campaignmonitor.com/movies/intro.html
PHP Mailer/PHP List. Both free open source and can be plugged into Wordpress. Check compatibility with your webhosts settings first though.
please add me to the mailing list too. by the way can you give some idea of what the costs are of the non-free options?
Why is Mailman the only self-hosted option there? It’s popular, but as you note, it’s not particularly user-friendly and I’d go so far as to say it’s not properly free and open source software (I submitted a bugfix years ago and the bug still exists). I’m using mlmmj at work (simple but easy and it’s connected to my web hosting control panel), but I think sympa, lyris and Enemies of Carlotta are other popular options.
There are also some Wordpress add-ons for newsletters, but I’ve not looked at them recently.
a) yes, please add me to the list to receive the crumbs of your wisdom
b) it might be worth having a look at mailchimp.com – easy to set up, quick to learn and pretty cheap to use. also has html/text option and allows recipients to sign up or even unsubscribe v easily
c) as ever your instincts are spot on – content is king, not the delivery vehicle.
@Shane – very kind offer, might take you up on it. Maybe you could show me it at Bathcamp
@Matthew – have signed up for a Mailbuild account and am having a play – lots of people have kind things to say about you guys!
@Political Penguin – thanks for the tips, will check ‘em out. Interesting blog you have there, btw!
@Paul – will do another post on this I think once I have had a go at a few of the services, will include pricing in the roundup (and I have you on my list!)
@MJ – purely down to my half-assed attempts at researching. Will follow up those leads.
@Michael – thanks for the tips and will add you to the list of course! Let’s hope the content is up to scratch….