Welcome to Part 1 of a 4 part series on Mailing Lists for Web Developers.
In Part 1 we’ll go over Mailing List Providers, in Part 2 we’ll discuss mailing list templates, and in Part 3 we’ll integrate a custom mailing list into Wordpress. Finally we’ll do some tracking and statistics with our mailing list in Part 4.
Today, we’ll run down the Open Source options for people trying to get a mailing list up and running on any platform. I use Wordpress for most of my work, and all of the following have great integration with Wordpress.
We have three options:
Free hosted provider – Such as feedburner. Robust tracking, but mailing list isn’t very customizable.
Commercial Hosted Provider – Such as Constant Contact. Robust tracking and mailing list, but paid monthly, hosted elsewhere.
Free Local Provider – Such as PHPList. Hosted on our webservers, robust tracking and mailing list, but a pain to set up and maintain.
Free Hosted Provider: FeedBurner
FeedBurner makes managing RSS feeds and gathering statistics very easy. Since being acquired by Google in 2007, they have also made email newsletter subscriptions available for free. They offer very robust statistics, so you can tell everything about your subscriber’s habits. However, you can only fill your newsletter with an RSS feed.
Pros:
- Easy Setup
- Robust Statistics
- Integrate with Wordpress Immediately
- Copy and Paste Level Difficulty
Cons:
- Feed controlled by Google
- User statistics owned by Google
- Stuck with RSS feeds turned into mailing list contents
- Not very robust for customization
Verdict: Best For Newbs
If you’re just starting out blogging, you need to have some way to keep in touch with your readers. Google’s feedburner makes it easy as possible. What you give up in control of your list you make up for with ease of use and robust tracking statistics. Get up and get running quickly with feedburner.
Commercial Hosted Provider: Constant Contact
Constant Contact is a good example of a commercial mailing list provider. Almost everything is taken care of for you, from template management to subscriber tracking, to Wordpress integration. It’s all there, and you get a level of quality only available for paid software.
Pros:
- Immediate functionality
- Robust Tracking
- Strong Customization Features
- Prebuilt Templates
Cons:
- Not Free
- Data Still hosted Elsewhere (Although you can back up locally all information)
Verdict: Best For Paid Clients
This is a great solution for paid clients. They just want functionality, robustness, and ease of use. If something goes wrong, your clients can call customer service instead of you. Giving clients a commercial product gets me out of the way and lets them take care of things for themselves.
Free Local Provider: PHPList w/ Custom Integration
Pros:
- Open Source, Free
- Robust; Powerful
- Own all Information
- Complete Control
Cons:
- Difficult to use
- (Possibly) Difficult to integrate
- Steep learning curve
Verdict: Developers Only
Even though PHPList is easy to install, configuring it and setting it up for your own personal use can be a headache. There is documentation, but there are a thousand little steps that take time. It is, however, worth your time to learn the process, especially if you are a web developer. There are some things you can only do with PHPList as your base. This is my preferred mailer, but it is only because I have put so much time into learning the process of building a list within it.
Summing Up
We have 3 main options for a mailing list provider:
Feedburner – Free service from Google, not very customizable. Best for beginners.
Paid Option – Best for clients, sign them up, then let them do the work. Best for Businesses.
Open Source (PHPList) – Best for developers. Learn the process of building a mailing list at every step.
What’s next
In Part 2 we’ll discuss building our mailing list templates. These are built using basic CSS and HTML. Depending on our provider, we’ll have a few variables we can use, such as a subscriber’s name, custom tracking software, etc. It’s easy enough, but it’s not well documented. We’ll also discuss how to make our Mailing Lists readable from within web based mailers, something nobody seems to get right.
