Why would your organization want to pay for an email marketing service, instead of simply using Outlook and your regular email server to contact your members?

There are a number of compelling reasons why even a small e-newsletter subscription list might best be handled by a dedicated email marketing service, starting — first and foremost — with reliable delivery.

Deliverability: If your organization’s email newsletter never makes it to your members’ Inbox, you might as well not bother to send it.

The best email marketing services work hard to maintain a good relationship with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to make sure their customers’ emails are delivered reliably, and a double opt-in feature will go a long way to keep your email blasts safe from spam complaints.

You might also want to look for a built-in spam score assessment tool to help you word your email messages so they won’t get trapped in standard spam filters.

Here are some other aspects of email marketing to consider when choosing a bulk email service:

List Building / Autoresponder: Let software automatically collect email addresses by encouraging people to subscribe to your newsletter through your website, and you’ll save a great many staff hours over building and managing that mailing list database by hand.

Acknowledge the subscriber with an autoresponder message that goes out to each person on sign-up. It’s a small courtesy that goes a long way to a professional appearance for your organization, and can save a great many duplicate sign-ups or queries from people who aren’t sure whether their subscription went through.

HTML Templates: Templates ensure a certain consistency from one newsletter to the next, and make the job of composition faster and more efficient. Customize a basic template to create an attractive visual presentation to match your newsletter to your website, for instant recognition and solid branding.

That said, please don’t forget those members who get their email as plain text, whether by choice or due to the limitations of technology available to them! Check to see that your message is still accessible and effective, when the fancy fonts and images are stripped out.

Advance Scheduling: Prepare your email in advance, when you’ve got the time to dedicate to the job, and schedule it to be mailed out at another date and time — whenever it best suits your needs.

There are any number of situations where the ability to date-shift your communications can be an advantage: A last-minute reminder sent out right before a special event? A fundraising campaign email launched on the same day your organization receives a high-profile reward, to make the most of media coverage? Or simply to make your workflow more efficient?

Tracking: How many newsletters get delivered, and what email addresses are dead or false? Managing your email contact list is much easier with a tool that’s designed for that purpose.

And a specialized bulk email service can offer much more information about what happens to your e-newsletters at the other end of the pipe. Which of your contacts are opening your emails? Who goes a step further, and actually clicks through the links you’ve included?

Reliable tracking helps to keep your contact database clean and lean, and gives you essential information about your readers’ actions so you can fine-tune the email content and presentation to meet their needs.

One more practical consideration: Bandwidth. If you’re sending out even a few hundred email newsletters even once a month, check the amount of data transfer that your regular Internet Service Provider or web host will allow.

What might seem like a frugal option at first — bulk emailing through your own email client or through your group’s website — could surprise you with a hefty fee for excess bandwidth at the end of the month.

Email Marketing Tools

There are a great many email marketing and autoresponder options to choose from, at various price points and with quite a range of features. How can you begin to choose the right bulk email tool to suit your organization’s communication needs and goals?

If you’ve subscribed to any e-newsletters yourself, it’s likely that one of these tools is bringing those emails to your Inbox: check the email footers to see what services those organizations have chosen to use, and ask colleagues in other nonprofits for their recommendations.

Here are a few services to get you started —

AWeber is arguably the gold standard of email marketing solutions, with a wide array of features and a sound reputation for reliable delivery. Prices start at $19/month for up to 500 emails and go up from there.

ConstantContact discontinued their free plan for small lists, last year, but remains a popular choice. Pricing now comes close to that of AWeber  (starting at $15/month for 500 emails), but word is that the deliverability has also improved to match.

GraphicMail offers qualified non-profit organizations the first 5,000 emails free. The pricing structure is based on a credit system, where 1 credit sends out 1 email. A monthly subscription starts at 2000 credits for $9.95, but unused credits can’t be carried over to the next month. The alternative “pay-as-you-go” plan charges $49.95 for 2000 credits but those credits do not expire and non-profits may be eligible for a 35% discount.

iContact is worth noting for its win of a Web 2.0 Award that gave high scores for usability and usefulness. Prices are based on the size of your contact list, not on the number of emails, starting at $9.95/month for 500 contacts, and a 20% discount is offered to non-profit organizations who can document their non-profit status.

Take advantage of the free trials offered by most email marketing services, to get a firsthand sense of how they compare and which one will best suit your communication needs.

Do you have advice about bulk email management to pass along to other non-profit organizations and associations, or a favourite service you’d like to recommend? As always, you’re most welcome to share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments section, below.