Email List Management Services for Small Local Businesses

Small local businesses have particular needs when it comes to email list service providers. Here are some features that should be considered.

• Unconfirmed opt-ins. Brick and mortar businesses often gather email addresses on site; this presents special problems if your email service provider requires an opt-in confirmation, as many customers will receive this opt-in request hours or days after the signup; thus, the confirmation rate is low – see my previous blog post on this topic, “Email List Development for a Restaurant – Aweber of Constant Contact?“. For these businesses, an unconfirmed opt-in option is a plus.

• Automated blog-post broadcasting to social media sites. Automated broadcasting to a business’s Facebook and Twitter pages can increase efficiency, although at the cost of personalization and the ability to tailor posts to each audience.

• Automated blog-post broadcasting to the business’s email list. Creating newsletters is time consuming, and the ability to link the RSS feed to the email list is a good option, especially if the blog is active. The email broadcast can usually be scheduled, to send after a certain number of posts, or at a pre-defined frequency.

• Cost (see the list below).

Here is the information I have gathered so far in making decision about an email list service provider (please confirm this information with the providers, as things change!):

Footnotes:
*The Aweber optin can be deactivated, but not for multiple entries or imports.
** Mail Chimp allows single optin entries on the back end.

Other automated email subscriptions to blogs, but without the benefit of email list ownership: http://subscribe.wordpress.com/, http://feedburner.com.

Also, twitter feed will broadcast your blog to your social media accounts.

Please contribute to this post with any updates, corrections, or additions.

Thanks! Spafford Ackerly