Best email newsletter service for this specific application?
February 17, 2020 2:07 PM Subscribe
I'm on the faculty at a small liberal arts college, with courses in international relations and environmental politics. After a conversation with a colleague, I'm thinking about starting a very specific type of email newsletter for students (possibly alums as well), but I'm not sure which platform would be the best choice.
Not a news-you-need-to-know or politics roundup, but something very specific and brief that connects 1-2 news stories/events per week to political science concepts/theories. Imagine a paragraph on what a political science perspective might look like for, say, the Sunrise Movement arrests in the Capitol this morning or yesterday's NYTimes article about damming the Mekong.
I'm already doing something really similar a few times a week for my classes - sometimes in class emails and sometimes at the beginning of our sessions - and some folks suggested there might be broader interest.
What email newsletter platform would you recommend? Preferably free all-around, for me and for subscribers. So many recommendations/lists are focused on business marketing, which seems really different from my goal. I have zero interest in monetizing this - it would actually be frowned on as unprofessional, even if I did want to. That said, I would be interested in knowing stats like open rates, click-through rates for news links, etc. I'm just not even sure where to start. I subscribe to some newsletters that are through substack, but their website also pitches paid subscribers as the goal, which makes me feel like students/administrators might perceive it differently than I intend. Thanks!
Not a news-you-need-to-know or politics roundup, but something very specific and brief that connects 1-2 news stories/events per week to political science concepts/theories. Imagine a paragraph on what a political science perspective might look like for, say, the Sunrise Movement arrests in the Capitol this morning or yesterday's NYTimes article about damming the Mekong.
I'm already doing something really similar a few times a week for my classes - sometimes in class emails and sometimes at the beginning of our sessions - and some folks suggested there might be broader interest.
What email newsletter platform would you recommend? Preferably free all-around, for me and for subscribers. So many recommendations/lists are focused on business marketing, which seems really different from my goal. I have zero interest in monetizing this - it would actually be frowned on as unprofessional, even if I did want to. That said, I would be interested in knowing stats like open rates, click-through rates for news links, etc. I'm just not even sure where to start. I subscribe to some newsletters that are through substack, but their website also pitches paid subscribers as the goal, which makes me feel like students/administrators might perceive it differently than I intend. Thanks!
I use Substack and there's a way to do it for free, both for you and for your subscribers. I can see open and click-through rates and get decent stats.
Sure, they do push the paid angle beforehand, but it's pretty easy to ignore and they don't keep spamming you about it.
posted by divabat at 2:45 PM on February 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Sure, they do push the paid angle beforehand, but it's pretty easy to ignore and they don't keep spamming you about it.
posted by divabat at 2:45 PM on February 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
We looked at this for a scientific newsletter [*] and the best solution we came up with was using a university mailing list service with manual subscribe/unsubscribe via Google forms.
On the plus side: The solution is free, clearly non-commercial, has no tracking (this was a plus for us), and uses a professional list address (list@university.edu).
On the minus side: It's a clunky system, subscriptions have to be loaded manually (no self-service option), bounces have to be managed by hand (e.g., all our .ru subscribers had to be contacted manually and told to use other addresses).
We currently have ~400 subscribers around the world, and it's working so far.
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:47 PM on February 17, 2020
On the plus side: The solution is free, clearly non-commercial, has no tracking (this was a plus for us), and uses a professional list address (list@university.edu).
On the minus side: It's a clunky system, subscriptions have to be loaded manually (no self-service option), bounces have to be managed by hand (e.g., all our .ru subscribers had to be contacted manually and told to use other addresses).
We currently have ~400 subscribers around the world, and it's working so far.
posted by RedOrGreen at 2:47 PM on February 17, 2020
Best answer: Mailchimp also has a little spinoff called TinyLetter which tracks less stuff (a lot less, basically just opens and unique clicks). There was some drama in 2018 about whether it would be going away or not and so far it hasn't. It's totally free, has a basic set of design tools, no templates and I've been using it for years and it's pretty low key. There's a pretty short list of newsletter tools that are totally free. MailChimp has really cornered the market. I am a free subscriber to a lot of my friends' Substacks and I feel pretty non-upsold, if that's helpful?
posted by jessamyn at 2:47 PM on February 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn at 2:47 PM on February 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
You might ask what admissions system your admissions department is using (if you don't already know) because some of them have this functionality baked into them and at a small school the admissions department might be willing to let you use it.
posted by shesbookish at 6:53 PM on February 17, 2020
posted by shesbookish at 6:53 PM on February 17, 2020
Response by poster: Thanks! TinyLetter ended up being a really good fit for the kind of platform I was looking for.
posted by brozek at 9:15 AM on February 18, 2020
posted by brozek at 9:15 AM on February 18, 2020
Just note with TinyLetter that their formatting options are pretty wonky and they won't really let you embed things like YouTube videos - you can only link to them. This is why I switched to Substack (it was pretty easy to transfer over all subscribers and content if you decide to switch).
posted by divabat at 5:08 PM on February 18, 2020
posted by divabat at 5:08 PM on February 18, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
All platforms I'm familiar with do pricing tiers based on number of contacts and volume of emails. You don't have to monitze if you don't want to, even if the platform encourages you to do so. It is entirely optional.
posted by ananci at 2:23 PM on February 17, 2020