I first started developing my own email marketing list back in 1997 with the launch of my first site, The Magic Portal. Initially, I used Outlook Express to edit and send my occasional newsletters, but that soon grew difficult to manage as my lists grew in size. Additionally, I learned that email personalization was critical to getting your email opened, and Outlook doesn't allow you to do any personalization. After doing some research, I learned from Marlon Sanders about Infacta's Group Mail which is now (as of October 24, 2005) in Version 5. The fact that this tool has outlasted the competition says huge things about it. Most of the other favored tools by other marketers have died on the vine and either are no longer supported or have not been enhanced in years. All the more reason why anyone thinking about investing in a tool to manage their online marketing should look at Group Mail first. This latest version has a much improved user interface. It's crisp and clean and uncluttered, and it uses a Microsoft-like navigation bar on the left side of the screen. As you click on the items, the menu expands and contracts accordingly to reveal additional menu options. You can also click on links in the central screen, and even right click for additional options. This means you don't have to hunt for commands and features, enabling you to breeze through your marketing campaigns. Of course, Group Mail handles announcements, subscribe/unsubscribe requests, merging to personalize every email with contact information (i.e.: "Dear John ..."), integrated spell checker, send rich-text or plain text messages (or both) with multiple attachments, email address verification.  The developers at Infacta are always adding and refining the tool's functions and features. With this latest launch, you can also blast messages via SMS. The plug-in architecture makes this program limitless. The plug-ins are free to registered users and they enhance the abilities of the program 1000%. There is practically nothing you can not do with it.  I particularly like their new Scheduler module. With it, you can either send an email message to a list at a time and day of your own choosing, or schedule the Subscriber option to process recent subscribe/unsubscribe requests. For a while, Mail Loop was the only other product to offer this type of scheduling and automation, but with the release of Version 5, Group Mail pretty leaves its competitors in the dust. One of the their latest additions, is the ability to track the results of your campaigns -- opens, click-throughs, etc. This is a special service designed for Group Mail users and requires a separate account, but it seems to be priced reasonably, and I'd encourage anyone considering Group Mail to also consider this option. It's hard to know how well your campaigns are doing without this type of click-through statistics. If you are thinking of upgrading from an older version of Group Mail as I did, know that the upgrade is effortless. The installation of Version 5 detects pre-existing, older versions and offers to import the existing lists into the new database. This works flawlessly for my 7000+ different email addresses across dozens of small lists (I try to use very targeted marketing).  We love this tool. You can even download a free version to get a feel for the tool before you make the final investment. I'm betting, though, that you will buy it immediately upon visiting their site. It's that good. For more information, click here.