Last Thursday I had an interesting Twitter chat #simpli5. You can read the transcript here. It was a discussion about web apps. I asked about free newsletter sites and got some interesting responses, phplist, ymlp and MailChimp.
On further inquiry I realised phplist is too technical it involves servers and stuff. YMLP is a very nice tool except their free plan is a little let down. They first put me on a trial plan which allowed me to upload contact lists but did not allow me to send more than 25 emails. So I downgraded to the free plan where uploading contact lists is not possible! Which is a shame, I find. So I went on to MailChimp,
This one turned out to be pretty cool!
- I can send a newsletter to less than 500 people for free.
- I can upload a contact list.
- I can also set up a 'Newsletter SignUp' form easily for my website, as you can see it on the right sidebar of this blog! (This is a newsletter about interesting stuff happening in my life, will not be social media stuff, so sign up if you want to)
- It also has a list of interesting templates for the newsletter and a lot of customizability.
- URL tracking, auto G Analytics tracking etc..
- and many more features
I am not sure whether there is an export contact list option, but I have seen how the list of emails get displayed I can easily do a copy paste in case I wanna shift!
Good to get this free option, I feel that free tools and platforms are one of the primary reasons for the social medium being referred to as Media! It enables masses to be a part and get connected for free, only cost being the internet connection and Time!