Advantages:
• Never pay recurring fees,
just buy it once. This saves a tremendous
amount of money over time, especially for
larger, more frequent email campaigns. The
more you want to keep in touch with your customers,
prospects, members and readers via email,
the more money this saves you.
•
Unlimited use. Supports unlimited
number of lists, unlimited subscribers, unlimited
databases, unlimited campaigns, unlimited
mailings.
• Keeps your
database updated with subscriber
actions (clicks, unsubscribes, etc.) in real
time, with no importing or exporting
required. Works with Access, SQL, MySQL, Oracle
and many more.
• Total
control: you control the messages,
the data interaction, the list segmentation,
the timing, the reports… everything.
It’s all at your fingertips, and you
don’t have to rely on someone else to
do the job for you.
Disadvantages:
• Uses
your own bandwidth.
• Requires
you to maintain the PC or server on which
the software is running.
•
Requires you to maintain your own mail server
(SMTP server) or coordinate with your ISP
to use theirs. Of course, you already have
a mail server, so this is usually not a big
factor.
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Advantages:
• An easy way to offload the full
project and let someone else deal with it.
• Uses the service provider’s
bandwidth, not yours.
• Service providers usually offer
advice and campaign strategy along with
email services.
• If you don't wish to control your
email campaigns, you can let someone else
control them for you.
Disadvantages:
• Significant data security
risk because you have to export
and send your valuable customer database
to someone else. What's their security
like?
• Difficult to synchronize
your data because bounces, unsubscribes,
clicks and other actionable events are recorded
in the service provider’s database,
not yours. To be accurate, you have to synchronize
the data, which takes time and can introduce
errors.
• The more you use the system, the
more you are financially punished
for doing so. Expect to pay fees for every
email campaign you send, plus extra for
high-volume campaigns.
• Significant blacklist threat:
if just one customer of the service provider
sends a spam message, the entire service
provider can be blacklisted from AOL, Hotmail,
Yahoo, MSN and other providers, causing
your email to be blocked also.
• Frustrating delays:
your email campaigns take longer to send
because you have to coordinate with the
service provider, upload your data, transfer
the message, etc.
• Join the crowd:
when you use pre-built email newsletter
templates and graphics offered by email
services, your email looks essentially the
same as a thousand other company emails.
• Price increase risk:
if their email service prices go up, you
have to pay. You're trapped in a closed
system that will require a tremendous effort
to rebuild with a different service provider.
• Loss of direct control:
for many services, someone else maintains
and manages your email campaigns for you.
Do you really want someone else in control
of the messages your most valued customers
are reading?
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