Comparative Analysis of Newsletter Managers
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Do you know what is a newsletter manager ?
Newsletter manager help you manage a list of users who have opted to receive information from you.
In a newsletter manager you will find :
List Manager : Here information of all the users who have opted to receive your information are stored and categorized based on the type of information they have wished to receive.From list manager you can add or delete users,view email address of the users,check the statistics of responsiveness etc.
Campaign Manager : A campaign is where you enter information regarding your newsletter or promotions or ads.A campaign manager generally contain a email builder and a subscription form builder.In the email builder you will design the email that will be sent to the user once they opt in to receive your information.In the subscription form builder you will create an optin form.The optin form will contain the email field and a name field.This two are essential to send an email to someone.Additionally you may add other type of fields like country,address etc.
Subscription Form Builder : As discussed earlier the subscription form builder creates a subscription form.The form will enable interested user to give their personal information so that they can receive information from you.
Auto-Responder : Not all newsletter managers possess this module.The auto-responder module will help you to send occasional email at a frequency specified by you to the users who have opted to receive information from you.
If a newsletter manager has all the above modules you can easily use it to manage your newsletters.
What is Vertical Response ?
A newsletter manager.
Does it offer all the four modules discussed earlier ?
No.It do not offer the Auto-responder module which is offered by MailChimp.But all the other modules are available with them.Additionally they also allow user to add a sharing module by which you email can be bookmarked or re-tweeted to the social networking sites.
Where do vertical response stand if compared with the other newsletter managers ?
The table below tried to show the comparison :
Features/Module
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||||
Price($)/Email(upto 1000 users)
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0.015
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0.01($5 for setup)
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0.03(Free upto 500 users and 3000 emails)
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0.009(but must pay $24)
|
Email Delivery
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partnered with ReturnPath
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Email authentication with ISPs and integration with ISP feedback loop.Partnered with ReturnPath,Litmus
|
Email authentication with ISPs and integration with ISP feedback loop.
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Email authentication with ISPs and integration with ISP feedback loop
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Email Creation
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500 email templates
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30 free templates
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No templates but WYSWYG Email Editor
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300+ templates,Email to Speech
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Email Integration
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Salesforce.com, Intuit QuickBooks, or Google Apps
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Social Media integration like Twitter,Facebook..
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Paypal,Wufoo,Facebook,
Twitter,Highrise,Drupal etc.
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Paypal,1ShoppingCart,Blog
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Email Tracking
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Top performing list,links and emails,click-throughs,domain tracking.
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Google Analytics,Spam Complaints,Activity Timelines
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Piecharts,Geomaps,Click Overlay,List growth,Spam scores
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Google Analytics,IPhone Access,Conversion Tracking
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Subscription Form Builder
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WYSWYG formmaker,Survey builders
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WYSWYG formmaker,Survey builders
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WYSWYG formmaker,Survey builders
|
WYSWYG formmaker,Survey builders
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Campaign Builder
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Email campaigns only
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Forward to friend
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User specific content,RSS to Email
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Dynamic Content,Free leads
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Allows to Separate Users to different Groups ?
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Allows to design email with images,links and other web page designing features ?
|
Yes
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Allows to merge form fields into the email ?
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Allows to import user information from spreadsheet or csv files ?
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Autoressponder Available ?
|
No
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
(Only the unique features of the newsletter managers are given.Common features are omitted)
From the comparison it can be concluded that more or less all the newsletter managers offers the same features but pricing wise there is a difference.Vertical Response offers free 30 day trial plus 0.015 per user pricing and MailChimp allows you to send upto 3000 emails to 500 users per month completely free of charge.But if you have more than 500 users or send more than 3000 emails per month using MailChimp will cost higher than the other 3 newsletter managers.
Overall if you want to use a newsletter manager and do not want to pay much use MailChimp.But remember you list must not exceed 500 and please do not email more than 3000 times per mo.If your list is more than 500 then use Vertical Response which have the cheapest pricing in this section.
