PHPList: Effective Marketing, Within Everyone's Reach
Email marketing is the new frontier of direct marketing, and it's done through the web. There are programs that facilitate the management of this type of marketing, one of which is PHPList, a freeware software that makes the work of advertisers and others easier.
Email marketing is a direct marketing technique that uses email as a means to communicate messages to the public.
Usually, this technique is used by companies to send emails with the intention of acquiring new customers, proposing the purchase of their products, usually new ones, to already acquired customers, or adding advertising elements to emails sent by other companies to their customers.
Companies in the United States, Europe, and even in emerging economies, are investing more and more in email marketing because, with good work, it is less expensive than direct marketing done with paper materials, and the return on investment is usually much higher.
This technique is also instantaneous, especially when compared to paper mail, in fact, an email arrives in seconds or minutes, while a promotional letter takes several hours at best. The advertiser can thus "push" the message to the public, while with a website, which "waits" for visitors to reach it, the work would be less effective and slower, and can also track users, email opening rates, positive or negative responses, and sales derived from marketing.
Email marketing allows a company to acquire a large number of subscribers who want to receive emails on topics of their interest, as more than half of web users send and read email messages every day.
One of the most used programs for this type of marketing is PHPList.
PHPList is an Open Source software developed in PHP, based on a MySQL database, and allows the management of address lists and the sending of personalized newsletters.
The application is completely manageable through a web interface and allows both the definition of attributes associated with each user and the sending of personalized emails by calling the content of such attributes in the text.
It is possible to send emails and attached documents, both in text and HTML format.
PHPList also offers particularly effective features for managing bounces and using and creating user archives in CSV format.
A template system is also available for designing web pages for subscription and cancellation from lists and for modifying user-anagraphic information entered.
The installation and configuration of the software and the management of lists, users, and emails are very simple for a user with computer knowledge, but thanks to the numerous guides present on the net and on the program's official website, and the almost intuitive interface, even less experienced users can, in a short time, learn to manage their lists and newsletters.
Simple, free, and effective, PHPList is certainly an excellent tool for managing newsletters (commercial and non-commercial) and email marketing.
Sources: Web, Wikipedia.it (Web Marketing), www.phplist.com, images from the Web.