Is your subscriber data safe with your third party vendor or ASP that provides your email list manager service?
Do you want to have complete ownership and flexibility of your subscriber data?
With all kinds of ASP's (Application Service Providers) coming and going in this ever-changing Internet environment how can you be certain that your subscriber data is safe? If you're a small to medium business site you have probably built up a substantial list of subscribers to your email list. Some may have subscribed on their own, some through promotions and incentives that you run but regardless of how your opt in subscribers got there, you want to keep them.
Email lists have become an extremely popular marketing tool out-performing even direct mail's (that junk mail you get) response rate. While direct mail costs about $1 per piece and returns a response of about 1%-3% response, targeted opt in email has an average responses rate of 5%-20% at the price of .01 and .20 per subscriber.
E-mail lists have also become a measure of internet status that is greater than visitor traffic. What good are 50,000 monthly users to your site if you can't contact them? Aside from being an asset, opt in email lists have become a great bartering tool between web sites. Site owners are more inclined to trade advertising with loyal customers that have opted into their email, rather than trading a button, banner, or text link that may distract or loose a new customer or interested visitor.
All of these examples are just a few reasons why your site should start and maintain your own email list, and most importantly own and control all that goes on with your subscriber data. Don't trust your subscribers to a third party vendor or ASP.
We use a number of mailing list management systems and currently find the 12all application the best of the pack.
If you would like to investigate the possibility of running your own list, give us a call, or send us an email.