

Ask YC: Email marketing tool - mchang16

I am looking for a low-cost email marketing tool that I can use to start sending newsletters and messages to potential customers. I want to find a reliable provider that has high deliverability, but that isn't too pricey. I'm a start-up, after all.<p>I considered building this myself, but I'm guessing that there are lots of good products already on the market. Can anyone suggest something that they've used?
======
bigtoga
I was in the same position about two years ago and, due to the high cost of
services like ConstantContact/CampaignMonitor, I voted to build my own. After
two years, I had built my list up to about 10k users and my web host finally
came to me and asked me to move it off to another app/site/VPS.

It took me about a day to implement, I guess, and I think it saved me probably
$2500-$5000 even when I consider the time value of my development time.

I advise that, if you can charge yourself less than $150/hr for your time
_and_ you will be sending to a small amount of ppl initially, build it
yourself.

------
xirium
WebPower ( <http://www.webpower.nl/> ) runs opt-in mailing lists with quick
import options and an AJAX interface. The client list (
<http://www.webpower.nl/wp.php/webpower/klanten/> ) is quite impressive.

------
jakewolf
How come there isn't an YC company doing pretty and easy to create and manage
email marketing?

~~~
daniel-cussen
Because there aren't that many YC companies, and because email marketing is
usually spam, making it morally questionable.

~~~
omarseyal
is spam morally questionable? or is it just frowned upon by social norms

------
sahadeva
<http://www.madmimi.com/> is new / neat / ajaxy. Check it out, it's got some
nice features.

------
webwright
CampaignMonitor.com is outstanding unless you're doing high volume/spammy
stuff.

I'm concerned that you say "potential customers". Where are you getting the
list of people/emails?

~~~
mchang16
Fair question! I won't be mailing anyone that doesn't give me permission...my
application will require people to login and give me permission to email
them...after I do that, they may or may not become customers. But I won't
message anyone that doesn't opt-in!

------
julieb2
my company uses eloqua. I have a feeling that they might not satisfy the "low
cost" requirement, though.

------
ideas101
try <http://www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp> : it was free for 60 days -
dont know whether they still run that offer.

~~~
dshah
I use ConstantContact for my email distribution at <http://OnStartups.com>.
Has worked well for me.

Disclaimer: Gail Goodman, the CEO of ConstantContact is on the board of my
startup. But, I was a fan of the company well before that.

