I’d like to bring my e-mail communication with our 10.000 + members to a new level.
This is what I’d like to achieve:
Pass E-Mail Spam Filters
E-mails generated on a webserver are sensitive to being filtered by spam filters. Therefore, we’d like to make use of external services like MailChimp (http://www.mailchimp.com) and Campaign Monitor (http://www.campaignmonitor.com/).
Not only bulk e-mails but also customised individual emails should be generated by these services.
Alternatively, we could make use of our own mailserver. However, I’d like the way how templates are generated in external mail tools, and how HTML emails are working in all mail clients. Also, I would think that e-mails generated by external email services are more likely to pass e-mail filters, isn’t it?
Personalise
We’d like to personalise e-mail message. Not only by adding merge a name ‘Dear XX’, but also add conditional content (if the member is active, then add this content piece).
API feedback
We’d like to know the results of each individual email. If an email has bounced because an email address no longer exists, we want to know. This is where we can use social network push messages or the user sessions on login, to inform the member: ‘hey, something has gone wrong with your email address, could you please enter your new email address?’.
Dynamic Mailing List
We’d like to be able to send emails to certain sets of members. For example, send an e-mail to all members who have registered more than one year ago, to all male members, or to all members working for an university. Thus instead of a fixed member list, we’d like this list to be composed on the fly, through a SQL query.
Anyone who has implemented complex functionality like this before?
Any recommendations on which external tools to use?
Mail Chimp
Campaign Monitor
AWeber
Constant Contact
Topica
Simply Cast
and here are a few others listed as well:
http://hunch.com/browse/email-marketing-services/#t=campaign-monitoring,custom fields
Hopefully someone is experienced in this…