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.
Group Mail 5
