| Thinking about using phplist? Keep reading. | | | | (Forget your overall email marketing strategy - if |
| The "open source dream" could quickly turn into a | | | | you're fighting with phplist just to deliver your mail, |
| nightmare for your email marketing strategy AND | | | | you're spinning your wheels). |
| your deliverability as you'll see in just a moment. | | | | 4) Responsibility. When you host your own email |
| Here are the top five weaknesses of phplist that you | | | | blast program like phplist, you're ultimately 100% |
| might not know... | | | | responsible for how you use it. SPAM laws, email |
| 1) Complexity. Phplist can do a LOT (if you can | | | | best practices, and deliverability are all squarely on |
| imagine it, some geek can code it right?) - but that's | | | | your shoulders. If you don't know exactly what you |
| not always a good thing. While it's true that after the | | | | need to include in a promotional email blast to protect |
| initial install of phplist, most of the "tech nightmares" | | | | yourself and your subscribers, then you could be in |
| are behind you, but you might still end up in a sticky | | | | for a rude awakening. |
| situation if anything goes wrong along the way. | | | | 5) Integration. If you want to integrate phplist with |
| Relying on a self hosted solution like phplist means | | | | an outside service, then get ready for API |
| giving up the ability to simply call a support desk and | | | | headaches, complicated other programming feats, |
| have them handle the problems for you. | | | | and a whole lot of trial and error. On the other hand, |
| 2) Support. Say for instance you try to send out | | | | hosted autoresponders often have built in integration |
| from phplist and nothing happens, no emails get | | | | with CRMs like Sales Force, social networking sites |
| delivered. Well, you're at the whims of phplist's FAQ's, | | | | like Facebook and Twitter, and shopping carts like |
| user forums,and manuals - which means a lot of | | | | 1shoppingcart.com, Clickbank.com, and Paypal. While |
| troubleshooting, research, trial and error stand | | | | phplist CAN integrate with pretty much anything you |
| between you and your vital email blasts getting sent | | | | want, actually getting it to work could be more |
| out. Working with a paid, hosted solution means | | | | stress than you bargained for. |
| having a team of knowledgeable people at your beck | | | | A little research into phplist alternatives could mean |
| and call. Not so with phplist. | | | | months of time saved, and Millions in profits earned. |
| 3) Deliverability. Phplist has a lot of strengths - it's | | | | But your autoresponder is really the least of your |
| capable of sending out email blasts to over 100,000 | | | | worries. |
| subscribers, it can store complex geo-targeting | | | | Even if you choose to make phplist work, the overall |
| information, user preferences, and "tags" to help you | | | | email marketing strategy that you use will ultimately |
| with list segmentation, but where it falls down flat on | | | | determine your level of success. |
| it's face is with email deliverability. | | | | From lead generation to your subject line to your |
| Why? | | | | receipt page, there are a whole host of opportunities |
| Well, phplist runs off YOUR server, which means that | | | | to make more, work less, and ultimately profit big |
| IP reputation, blacklisting, and SPAM complaints | | | | from email marketing. |
| suddenly become new issues for you to stress over. | | | | |