It used to be that snazzy email campaigns to your membership and supporters was an expensive proposition. One organisation I work with has been quoted $10,000 annually to set up and manage a monthly email newsletter. Not even close.

But lately I've been working with an online tool that does pretty much everything you could want with an email campaign tool and is priced right.

Up to six newsletters a month and up to 100 subscriber is free, up to 500 subscribers is US$10 a month and up to 2,500 subscribers is US$30 a month. Those are prices I can believe in. Check out MailChimp.com
Some of the features available include:

MailChimp tracks who opened, what they clicked, who bounced, how many times people forwarded your campaign, who didn't open, and more. It also enables you to target subsets of your list with free segmentation tools rather than having to create separate lists.

The system imports existing lists from Excel, Salesforce, Highrise and others and automatically handles duplicates, bounces, opt-ins and unsubscribes.

Built-in tools help you design and deliver HTML email campaigns including professional header graphics, fonts, and colour palettes to customize the email. If you're a professional designer, you can upload your own code.

One for us bunnies is that their Color Suggester will check you existing website and grabs colours from it for your email as well.

A major problem with managing your subscribers and volunteers is getting and managing their contact details. MailChimp has a tool to design signup forms that meet your needs with your own colours and logos, then embed them into your website or blog.

They provide all the code you need and their system manages all subscriptions automatically for you.  A nice feature is that subscribers can even change their email and manage their own preferences.

I'm also keen on their ability to let you customise the content from your membership database, including quite complex rules that can let you offer specific things to people based on location, date they signed up or other information you have collected via the customised form.

I'm no fan of the matey fake chumminess of "Hi Earl, how IS that dog of your doing these days ...." that can come from some mass marketing campaigns, but neither am I interested in getting emails urging me to take part in some event in another town or country. Segmentation and optional customisation is good for avoiding that and these guys have it.

If you check it out, let me know how it goes.

Welcome back to Groupings blog. Now that you are a regular, please feel free to comment on any story that you feel comfortable with.