Using Email Groups to Reach 100+ Subscribers

[lisacb77]

Anyone on here use this? I have 100 subscribers to my enewsletter, so I have exceeded the BCC limit on Yahoo. I thought I'd set up one of these groups.

For the add function, when you add the 10 emails a day you are allowed, does it send those people an email? Just wondering. Is that the best way to do it? I'm worried if I just invite them that people won't bother to click through.

Thanks,

 

[DZmom]

I've been wanting to try this myself, but am not sure how it would work either!

 

[jrstephens]

I get a newsletter from my recruiter through yahoo!groups, but I do not know how she set it up. It seems to be a really neat service though. I send mine through my bellsouth email but it sure would be easier if it just automatically went to everybody and I did not have to click on each name to select.

 

[ltkacz]

It's pretty easy to set upA yahoo group. Just search for yahoo groups, and you'll see instructions on how to set up.

I tried doing this with everyone getting my newsletters too. Unfortunately, in order to be added to the group, the person on the other end needs to say "yes" they would like to be added. When I tried it, I only had a few people respond to it. So...instead, I've split my e-mail list up into clumps. Those being "past hosts", "preferred customers" those who have spent more than $100 with me, "customer list 1", "customer list 2". Then when I e-mail my monthly newsletter I simply e-mail in the order I just listed. Of course, yahoo won't let you do it all at once, so usually it happens over a 2 day period. It's a work around the hick-up with sending too much with yahoo.

 

[DebbieJ]

You could send your newsletter is multiple emails. That's what I do.

But when I have some down time business wise around Christmas I'm going to be changing it all to a Yahoo Group.

 

[chefann]

Officially, we're not supposed to use Yahoo groups to communicate with customers. That said, I used to use one, and if you use the "Invite members" function, they have to accept it. There is an "Add" function (it's hidden a couple of clicks deep) that they don't have to accept, but you can only add 10 addresses per 24-hour period.

It is very easy to send newsletters this way - you don't have to deal with the returns from bad addresses, you can set it up so the "reply" address goes straight to your inbox, and the recipients can't see the other recipients' addresses.

 

[DebbieJ]

Keep in mind too that a lot of email providers will flag your newsletter message as spam if there are too many addressees. So out of those 100 people that yahoo will allow you to BCC, I bet a lot of them aren't even getting it anyway.

I have my email lists split into groups of about 20 each in Outlook.

 

[gilliandanielle]

I do my newsletter through my Yahoo mail account. I add addresses in groups of 7 and there is a place where you can make lists of people, and just make a new list with each group. I named them Wave1, Wave2, etc inspired by conference! I have 10 waves, meaning that I have around 70 contacts and have to send the newsletter 10 times. Since I have the time to send the 10 e-mails I don't care that it is time consuming, but some might. I usually get around 3 or 4 e-mail adresses at every show, so it works out well. Good luck- I know my director has a Yahoo group and has over 100 of us in it!

 

[janel kelly]

Gillian, I do the same thing as well only I have 3 groups of 35-50. I don't like to do it over and over again so my groups are bigger. I suppose as I get more e-mail addresses a 4th group will need to be made and so on. I just wish I would get some response from my newsletter. Sometimes I wonder if anyone ever reads them but every once and awhile people will tell me they get my e-mails.

 

[chefann]

Sometimes I wonder if anyone ever reads them but every once and awhile people will tell me they get my e-mails.

I just started including specials for newsletter readers only to see if anyone reads them. One is "Free gift to the top host from the previous month if she contacts me after getting the newsletter."

 

[Pampered_Princess]

Customer careI use to be a Stampin up demonstrator and as such i would send out a monthly newsletter to Friends and such. well a up line of mine gave me this wed Addy www.constantcontact.com it was a Newsletter site with templates for every thing and it let you create your own news letters and i loved it i can put coupons on it and promotions pitchers and all that. your allowed up to five images uploaded through them but i just use my free yahoo geocities web space upload any images that want then cut and paste the Addy works just as well and there is no HTML involved.
i can schedule it to be sent out when ever i want or send it right then. there is a personalized visitor sign up page where your customers can put in as much information as you request, there is also a reminder on the newsletters that they should confirm there email Addy's so it doesn't get sent to spam.
There is also reports that tells you how many people opened your campaign what they clicked on and if any bounced who's email Addy bounced and why people can also unsub at anytime, and you don't have to worry about removing there names from what ever wave they were on the web site does it for you .
you can have campaigns for family business what ever when people go to sign up then they check what there interest are you can put a sign up box on your blog or in your email you can also add email Addy's simply by typing them in or in some cases cut and pasting them.
here is a copy of there price schedule i think its great for the variety that hey offer ! if any one would like a copy of my latest newsletter drop me a email and i will send it to you so you can see what they can do for you !

Constant Contact Schedule

Subscribers / Pay monthly / Pay for 6 months/ Pay for 12 months
0-50......................$0.00............$0.00.......................$0.00

51-500...................$15.00..........$13.50......................$12.75

501-2,500...............$30.00...........$27.00......................$25.50

[email protected]

 

[lisacb77]

Thanks all for the tips! I just went over 100 addresses so I did have the idea of creating multiple groups. (Can you believe that, in only 3 mos!!!) I have AAA newsletter so I can do A, AA, AAAA etc.

Ann I am curious. If we are not supposed to officially use a Yahoo group, then what does PC recommend we do? They don't give us any other tools? Just curious

Oh, and I use Joy's newsletter, so I definitely want something I can forward in email format. I guess for now I'll just start a second entry!

Thanks all,

 

[tlennhoff]

I like the look of Constant Contact but wonder if it would be worth the $15 a month.

 

[tlennhoff]

Ann I am curious. If we are not supposed to officially use a Yahoo group, then what does PC recommend we do? They don't give us any other tools? Just curious

That is a great question. I suspect that the concern with yahoo groups has to do with posting your web address on the web which is forbidden and yahoo groups keep everything you post. I am going to try emailing them to ask about a "newsletter" only yahoo group idea and will post any response I get.


I would be leary about using yahoogroups though as they are frequently "blacklisted" by several major "spam detector" used by many ISPs. I learned this as I moderate 6 groups and my ISP uses spamcop and at least once every couple weeks I'd go 2-4 days without getting mail from my groups because it was being rejected.

 

[lisacb77]

That is a great question. I suspect that the concern with yahoo groups has to do with posting your web address on the web which is forbidden and yahoo groups keep everything you post. I am going to try emailing them to ask about a "newsletter" only yahoo group idea and will post any response I get.

That would be great...maybe they can incorporate it like they do Cluster Web? Or into our personal web sites?

 

[tlennhoff]

Ok, I've just sent this suggestion to HO. Others might want to send this or something similar so that they see that it is from several of us.

A few of us consultants were thinking it would be really cool if we could do a newsletter mailing list from the website where we could mail our past customers and hosts a PDF newsletter directly from our personal website. Have you thought about making such functionality available to us?