Sendblaster Email Marketing
I am a huge fan of WordPress and all things WordPress, so I was looking around for a bulk email widget that I could use to send emails to people who subscribe to one of my websites. I found the SendBlaster widget which is a widget for newsletters opt in but SendBlaster is also an email marketing tool. Best of all it is free like all good things… however the free version has a few limitations which may or may not worry you.
One of them being you are limited to two lists and 100 emails. So if you have a small subscriber group the free version will be just right, if not the new SendBlaster2 is the version that you pay for. It is about $121 (aud), which I think is well worth the money. Here is some of the reasons I like Sendblaster2.
I have a database of clients on my Outlook email. I can import them directly into SendBlaster (which I can’t do in the free version).
The layout is great, easy to navigate and work out without reading a hefty manual. There is even a little video tutorial that runs through the basics in 7 minutes to view the first time.
They have a great Spam Checker feature which incorporates all the SpamAssasin rules and gives you a spam score. If you have too much spammy stuff it will let you know so you can fix it before sending it, thus more emails in the inbox rather than the junk filter.
Sending and tracking is also really good. Sendblaster will check bounce backs and remove them from the list. It is also able to display charts of how many people opened the email, how many links were clicked etc. This is part of a beta testing product that is offered to Sendblaster users through Track Reports. They do say that in the future this will be a charged subscription service, but if you are running a business and these stats are important, it could be a great feature.
SendBlaster is also desktop software which means once you pay for it, its yours with no ongoing subscription costs. You then control your mailing list and everything is kept private, so there is no way that your information and that of your clients or reader is being distributed to other 3rd parties.
The features list goes on and on, but if you are looking for something to send your email marketing, take a look at SendBlaster and try out the free version. If you need a little more grunt upgrade to SendBlaster2.
This is the comparison table between the free version and the paid if you were looking.
Any comments are welcome.