In recent blog posts we’ve considered two of the most popular uses for Simplelists, the ’listserve’ and ’email marketing’. However, don’t think that you’re limited to just these uses - Simplelists is designed to be flexible so that you can use it for many different tasks.
We simply have too many features to cover in just one blog post! Here we give you the first of a two part overview of the major features of Simplelists...
MANAGE YOUR LIST MEMBERS
- Upload Members In Bulk - you can add email addresses to your list direct from a file. This saves lots of time if you have a long list on a spreadsheet - just export the details to a file and upload in seconds.- Download Your List - your list is your property and Simplelists makes it really easy to make a copy of your list. With one click you can download your entire list of members to a file that can be opened in a spreadsheet.
SET PERMISSIONS & RESTRICTIONS
- Set Posting Permissions - you can select who can send emails to your list. This can be all members, selected members or just yourself.- Moderate Messages - you can choose to hold messages for approval before they are sent to your list. You have multiple options: no moderation (messages are sent straight to your list), hold all messages for approval or allow specific members to post without needing approval.
- Manage Replies - you can select whether replies are sent to the whole list or just to the person who posted the original email.
- Set Posting Restrictions - this can be useful if you allow other people to send emails to your list and you want to ensure that they don’t send huge emails. You can set the maximum email size in kB, remove attachments from emails, strip HTML from emails or truncate messages to a specific maximum number of characters.
- Allow/Disallow List Viewing - you may, or may not, want to let list members to see who is on your list. You have the following options: don’t allow list members to view each other, allow viewing of names only or allow viewing of names and emails.
CUSTOMISE YOUR EMAILS
- Customise Emails - you can easily customise your emails by including a personalised footer and a subject prefix. HTML can be included in the footer in order to include graphics or logos - in fact, HTML can be included throughout the entire email enabling you to completely customise your emails.- Insert A Members Name Into Your Email - you can personalise your emails by making each individual recipient’s name appear in the email.
- Archive Emails - when you activate web archives all emails will be stored on a custom website so that they can be accessed in the future. Access to these archives can be open or password protected. You have full control over the archives with the ability to delete old emails from the archives.
- Choose Daily Digest Summaries - this option is useful for busy lists. Instead of receiving list emails when they are posted, members receive one email every 24 hours that contains all the previous day’s messages. You can allocate this option to members on an individual basis or let members decide for themselves when they sign up via a subscription form.
In Part 2 we’ll cover the major features related to subscribe and unsubscribe options, integrating Simplelists with your websites and methods we use to ensure high delivery rates.