Opt-in e-mail is one of the most inexpensive and effective marketing tools available. But managing mailing lists can present a few problems: Messy, over-stuffed e-mail address books, keeping the e-mail addresses of other recipients private, adding, changing or deleting addresses, trying to sort subscribers by interest, location or other category. Trying to send targeted mail to select groups means complicated mail merges. And with so many viruses being spread by e-mail, keeping the addresses of your customers in your e-mail program's address book raises the danger of inadvertently infecting them all. That's why we developed SmartMail. It's e-mail made smarter.

Automatic subscription
With SmartMail, users sign up to receive newsletters through a simple form on your web site. You decide how many newsletters you'd like to offer, and on what topics. Offer low-fat recipes, travel bargains, parenting advice, discounts on computer games, stock tips, or a weekly or monthly update on information in your industry. Users select the topics they're interested in and choose a preferred format: plain text or HTML. SmartMail takes care of all additions automatically. You don't have to do anything at all. No more clumsy spreadsheets, complex databases or overstuffed address books to update or manipulate.

User preferences
Users can log into your site to change their preferences at any time. They can add or remove topics of interest, update e-mail addresses and other contact information, or change their preferred mailing format. SmartMail handles all the changes automatically. That means your newsletters are going to the ideal target market: Users who have asked to receive information on specific topics. They're interested in your product, your services, or the information you have to offer. They'll read your messages and respond to them.

Creating newsletters
SmartMail makes it easy to offer great-looking HTML versions of your newsletters with colorful, eye-catching graphics. All the formatting is handled automatically by templates. We'll custom-design as many different templates as you wish. You can use one template for all newsletters, or choose a different look for each topic you offer. You decide what elements will be standard for each template, and whether the content you will be adding will include text, graphics or both.

To create a newsletter, select a template and enter your content. SmartMail handles all the formatting for you, for both HTML and plain text versions. You can preview your newsletter in both formats, just as your subscribers will see it, and make any changes you'd like. When you're finished entering content and satisfied with the preview, you can send your newsletter immediately or save it to send at a later date.

Interactivity
HTML formatting lets you take full advantage of the interactivity of the Internet. Offer links for more information on your newsletter topic, special discounts for preferred customers, limited time offers, membership sign-up forms, customer surveys. Your "act now" message will reach your target audience at the optimum time – when they're online, reading your newsletter and prepared to act on it. No other marketing medium gives you that advantage.

Sending newsletters
Select the newsletter you want to send and the group of people you want to send it to. SmartMail will prompt you to enter an e-mail address for sending a test message to yourself. Within seconds you'll receive your newsletter in both HTML and plain text formats for your review. You can make changes if you like. Then just click "send" and your newsletter is on its way. Create or send newsletters from any computer connected to the Internet, from your office, home or on the road. You never have to worry about the location of your most recent mailing list, or swap copies of address books from computer to computer. Your mailing list is in the SmartMail system, and it's always up to date and ready to go.

Reporting
SmartMail lets you track the results of your newsletters with reports that show you who's read each newsletter, when, and how often. Find out which recipients are most responsive to your message and which messages are most effective. SmartMail's reporting feature gives you the data you need to fine-tune your opt-in e-mail for maximum impact.

Automatic archiving
All newsletters you create are automatically archived for easy reference. You can view your SmartMail history at any time to see what's been sent out and when, view the contents, and review reports on the results of each mailing.

Can a system with this many advantages be easy to use? Absolutely. Take the SmartMail tour and see for yourself.