Simplelists is designed to be quick, easy and simple to use. It also has a selection of powerful features for users who want more from their email management software. People who sign up to Simplelists do so for many reasons. They may want a way to manage group email discussions, use email for marketing purposes, or send regular updates and other information to list members. We are often asked what Simplelists can do, so this short post is a reminder of our features.

 Manage members

• Add members to your list You can add members to your list in bulk from a spreadsheet or .csv file. You can also easily download your list members’ email addresses to a spreadsheet.
• Set posting permissions You can select who can send emails to your list. This can be: all members, selected members or just yourself.
• Manage replies You can decide whether replies are sent to the whole list or just to the person who sent the original email.

Set restrictions

• Moderate messages You can choose to hold messages for approval before they are sent to your list
• Restrict email size You can limit the size of emails, strip attachments from emails, and more.
• Control list viewing You can keep members’ names and email addresses hidden or let them be seen by other members.

Customise your emails

• Add a personalised footer You can do this to personalise your email and include information about you or your company/group.
• Include HTML You can include HTML in your emails, enabling you to customise your emails.
• Include members’ names You can personalise your emails by automatically adding members’ names at the start of an email.
• Archive emails You can archive all emails - they can be accessed from a custom website at any time.
• Daily digest summaries These can be useful for busy lists. Instead of receiving emails when they are posted, members receive one email every 24 hours.

Control subscriptions

• Set subscribe and unsubscribe options You can choose whether new members can join your list, and whether this requires approval.
• Add a subscription form You can add a subscribe form to your website. It is fully customisable, so you can change it to match your website perfectly.

Integrate with websites

• Brand your landing pages On all landing pages you can replace the Simplelists heading with your own logo or branding.
• Synchronise your account with websites An API is available, which allows you to synchronise your Simplelists account with other websites.
• Integrate emails with your domain A multiple list account can be integrated with your domain so that users receive emails from your domain, rather than Simplelists.

Automated list management

• Notification of bounced emails When an email to one of your members bounces, you will receive a message to let you know.
• Automatic processing of bounced email addresses List members with emails addresses that bounce emails repeatedly are automatically removed from your list, saving you time.
• Automatic spam management If a list member marks your email as spam, they will automatically be removed from the list. This ensures that repeated emails are not marked as spam, which keeps delivery rates high.

Archives are an easy way to keep a record of all emails that have been sent to your list. This can be very useful for groups that use Simplelists for private group discussion as new members can quickly become familiar with topics that have previously been covered. Everything that has been discussed can be seen and reviewed, like minutes of a meeting, and revisiting old topics can be streamlined by referencing the previous messages. In this short post, we tell you how to set up and personalise your email archive in Simplelists.

Enable the archive

To enable email archives, simply log in, go to 'Archive Settings’ (in the left-hand menu) and select 'Enable archives’. You can also choose to show or hide email addresses, make archives private, or protect them with a password. When you have changed the settings, click 'update’ to save your choices.

View the archive

To view your archive, simply go to the web address shown at the top of the 'Archive Settings’ page. When you click on this link, you will see that each month’s emails can be viewed by date or by thread. Click on the 'by date’ or 'by thread’ links in the right-hand column to show the view you prefer. You can then browse to find emails that have been sent.

Personalise the archive

It is also possible to personalise your archives page by using your own logo instead of the Simplelists logo. Click on 'General Settings’ in the left-hand menu and add the web address of the image in the 'Custom image’ box. You can also learn more about personalising your landing pages and other Simplelists features in a previous post.

That’s all there is to setting up your email archive. Simple! You can view also these instructions in a short video in a previous post on our blog.

In Part 1 we looked at one of the most popular uses for Simplelists, the listserve. In this post we’ll consider another use that is also widely used - email marketing.

WHY USE EMAIL MARKETING?

There are many forms of marketing: SEO (search engine optimistion), social media marketing (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google+), a good website, advertising, email marketing and more. If you are serious about your business you should be using as many of these as possible. Each has their strengths and weaknesses but it is worth remembering that it isn’t an either/or choice - ideally you’ll use almost all methods.

But we’re focusing on email marketing here - why use email marketing?

It’s direct - when you send an email it goes directly to the person’s inbox. This means that you have the opportunity to gain the full attention of the customer.

It’s targeted - you decide exactly who you will send the emails to and you can tailor those emails specifically for the people who receive them. You can send different emails to different groups of customers.

To convert visitors to customers - when people browse websites online, most don’t buy immediately from the first website they see. Most people visit multiple websites and often research the area further, gathering information from several websites and returning to buy when they are ready - maybe after several days or weeks.

But which shop will the customer return to in order to make the purchase? Often it is simply the shop that they remember. Email marketing can really help here - if people receive a timely email they’ll remember you before the competition.

To encourage repeat business - customers that have bought from you before are more likely to return. You can use email marketing to contact them directly about new offers, products or services and turn a one time customer into a regular buyer.

WHY USE SIMPLELISTS?

Simplelists makes for great email marketing, here’s why:

It’s simple - you don’t need to be a tech expert to use simplelists. Just write an email and send it to your whole list!

It’s quick - let’s face it, you have a million and one things to do when you are running a business. If it takes up a lot of time to do your marketing jobs, they’ll probably end up forgotten. With Simplelists you can send out an email to all your customers in just a couple of minutes... and that means more time for everything else.

Emails get through - there is nothing worse than your marketing emails not getting through to your customers. Simplelists have better deliverability than email clients and free providers.

Your emails are free from advertising - most free group email providers place adverts on your emails so that they can advertise to your customers. This looks cheap and can be detrimental to your business. Emails that you send via Simplelists are free from adverts.

You can send HTML emails - with Simplelists you have the option to design emails using HTML. You aren’t constrained to templates so your emails can look exactly how you like. Of course you don’t have to use HTML - you can send simple text emails too.