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.
