Econoserv, the software development house, has launched its newest product - Economail. Economail is software aimed at small businesses and people who want to send multiple e-mails without any hassles, expensive equipment, or permanent connections to the Internet.
Keith Levenstein MD of Econoserv explains: "Small businesses traditionally do not have the infrastructure to send bulk e-mail and using the spam systems available on the Internet is not acceptable. We designed Economail to allow them to create their own e-mail lists, and easily send e-mails, without the usual problems in sending bulk e-mail.
"Many people think they can use Outlook or Outlook Express for this job, and although that software does work perfectly, they often cannot send out bulk e-mails using those packages: ISPs typically block multiple e-mails when using Outlook, or Outlook Express, if the list exceeds about 40 names. Sometimes, if even one e-mail address is incorrect, the entire job is cancelled.
"Updating and keeping a contacts database up to date is very difficult and time-consuming. Also, only one person at a time can update an Outlook Express address book.
"We all know how useful e-mail is as a form of communication, but it is difficult and time-consuming to implement. To do it properly, a company will need to capture names and e-mail addresses onto a central database, and allow more than one person on a small network to access and update the database."
Economail is simple to use software that is fully networkable. It has a central database, allowing easy updating of a person`s e-mail address and other details such as company and telephone details, even from across a network. Obviously the customer should give his permission to receive e-mails before updating his details. The heart of the Economail system is the easy ability to create mailing lists. The system allows for unlimited mailing lists and any one person can belong to as many mailing lists as necessary.
The software is used only for sending and cannot receive e-mails, but all messages sent are stored in an archive for later analysis.
The software allows you to type up an e-mail message, and if sending to a mailing list to even personalise it by inserting the recipient`s name into the message, eg each message can be personalised to for example begin with "Dear Keith, Dear John" etc.
Once the e-mail is ready to be sent, a connection to the Internet must be made, and as many as 100 e-mails can be sent per minute. Any failed e-mails can easily be resent.
As a customer relationship tool, e-mail is one of the easiest, cheapest and fastest methods of keeping in touch with customers - if only the customer database can be kept updated, believes Levenstein. "If the customer agrees to receive your e-mail, it is an easy way to market your company and build up a good relationship with him. Far too often, existing customers are ignored once the sale has been made. If a business could send a regular communication to their customers, it would keep their name and products uppermost in the customer`s mind, and encourage the customer to purchase from the company. Sending useful/informative e-mail/newsletters/price lists etc, using our software is an easy way to achieve this. The cost is no more than the cost of dialling up to the Internet and staying connected for a couple of minutes, effectively as little as one-tenth of 1c per short e-mail message.
Often a small business will say that it is too much effort to manage a customer database and use it to send e-mail to their customers. They must obtain the e-mail address and name and surname of the customer. Then it needs to be captured onto the computer system, and most importantly of all, the information must be regularly updated. Economail allows easy updates of information, and therefore encourages the users to keep it up to date. It also allows for importing of contact information.
In addition, since Economail is software that resides on their own PCs and not on the Internet, users do not have to worry about the security of their data on the Internet.
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