Review: Topica Email Publisher

If you're looking for a well-priced e-mail newsletter and e-mail marketing system that will hold the novice's hand and free the more experienced, you ought to take a very good look at Topica Email Publisher.

Topica got its start providing free e-mail newsletter services (currently called Topica Exchange www.topica.com), a smaller competitor to eGroups. But eGroups was acquired and became Yahoo! Groups about the time the bottom fell out of the Internet advertising market. To survive, Topica had to find a way to monetize their experience and their robust e-mail sending infrastructure. Their strategy was to begin a modestly-priced paid service with enhanced features and then seek to convert their free listowners into paid customers.

Pricing

Pricing is based not on the number of lists but on the number of e-mails sent out each month. The fact that you can host multiple lists at Topica Email Publisher will be very attractive to small businesses. Below I've shown their monthly prices, but if you are on the six-month or annual plan, you will receive 10% or 25% discounts respectively.

Topica Email Publisher's price is quite competitive. Here's a comparison with other popular hosted systems. Though there are some differences in packages and price break points, this will give you an idea of cost per thousand e-mails, the best way to make side-by-side price comparisons.

Topica Email Publisher offers an extremely competitive price -- better yet if you are on the six-month or annual plan.

HTML, Text, AOL, and Multi-Part MIME

Email Publisher is able to publish newsletters in all the common formats. Subscribers can indicate a preference when they first subscribe.

Text, of course, can be read by all recipients. HTML is not accessible to version 4.0 and 5.0 AOL users and corporate subscribers. You can elect to send text with special AOL link format to AOL subscribers, if you like. Fortunately, the days of having to treat AOL users as a world to themselves are rapidly fleeting, since most AOL users have upgraded to versions 6.0 or 7.0 that handle HTML e-mail pretty well.

Email Publisher can also send multi-part MIME which has both an HTML and a text component. The format seen by the recipient is based on the capability of the recipient's e-mail program. I checked to see if Email Publisher sends these in the proper order -- text first, then HTML. They do!

HTML Templates for Novices

One of the most impressive features of Email Publisher is the availability of HTML e-mail templates to help artistically- and HTML-challenged users to produce attractive HTML newsletters. In all, twelve different templates are available -- four different applications, each with three possible styles.

The styles are "Tech," "Natural," and "Contemporary." Though you can't select your own color scheme, the colors provided are quite attractive. There's a place at the top of the template to upload a graphic with your newsletter or company logo that makes the template look very much yours. The average recipient won't think "cookie cutter template" but will be impressed with the professional design.

Four different applications are available:

• One-product promotional templates
• Four-product promotional templates
• Six-article newsletter templates (allows images)
• Eight-article newsletter templates (doesn't allow images)

All but the eight-article newsletter template allow you to upload a picture to match each article or product. The pictures are then served from Topica's site and become visible to recipients when the e-mail message is viewed.

If you use the six-article newsletter template, but have only four articles, the last two article slots just don't show up. If I didn't have a picture for a particular story it adjusts automatically. The templates are well thought out and quite flexible for the novice user.

Article content for these HTML templates can't include HTML tags -- just normal text formatting. If you want a double space between paragraphs, the program interprets your double spacing into the necessary HTML code automatically.

After each article or product, you have the opportunity to create a link to another webpage. Here are some ways to use this feature:

• The newsletter might include an article title and a brief synopsis of the article with a link to the full text of the article on your website.
• A promotional e-mail might contain the description of a product with a link to the product page on your site or, if available in your e-commerce system, a link that places the product in a shopping cart ready for checkout.
• Topica's arrangement with PayPal allows you to set up a special e-commerce link so that you can accept payment for products even if you have neither a website nor a shopping cart program. This feature is great for newbies, since it allows them to get into e-commerce quickly and easily.

Full Custom HTML E-Mails for Experts

You can avoid Topica's pre-existing templates entirely if you like and provide your own custom HTML text. You prepare this offline using a webpage editor such as FrontPage or DreamWeaver and then paste the HTML code into the box provided.

Email Publisher enables you to set up a header as well as a footer to provide a consistent look and feel to your newsletters, so you only need to insert the content portion of your newsletter for each issue.

You're not able to jump back and forth between Topica's template features and custom HTML -- you need to select one or the other. For example, pictures for your HTML newsletter are hosted on Topica's site only when you use their template; if you use custom HTML you'll need to host the pictures on your own site. Of course, if you like the look of Topica's templates, you can use the HTML from one of the templates and use it as the basis of your custom HTML newsletter.

Reporting and Link Tracking

Email Publisher has some nice reporting features that can tell you quickly how effective your e-mail campaign has been. On the reporting screen you see data for each delivered issue -- the audience selected, date sent, clicks, total sent, and number of bounces. Also the subscriber activity is shown for each day in terms of new subscribers, unsubscribes, disabled, and current active subscribers for each type of list format, and the total number of current subscribers.

When you drill down to a particular delivered issue, you can see the open rate as well as the number of clicks for each of your newsletter links categorized by content format. What you don't see are the e-mail addresses of those who clicked through on these individual links -- a feature of SparkList Lyris and other higher-end programs.

Link tracking, however, is useful in seeing how responsive a list or audience is to a particular topic or product. You can track all links, no links, or turn tracking on or off for particular links. Tracked links use the format http://click.email-publisher.com/xxxx. They redirect the click-through momentarily to Topica's site for counting, then on to the final URL destination.

Subscriber Management, Imports and Exports

Email Publisher provides simple HTML forms on your site that subscribe individuals by taking two pieces of data: e-mail address and preferred e-mail format (text, HTML, or AOL). When you create a Topica  demographic collection form, subscription becomes a two-step process. At the first step the subscriber puts in an e-mail address and a format preference. At the second step a new window opens that says:

Subscription Successful
Hi, johndoe@aol.com and welcome. You are now subscribed to "FancyDancy Marketing Ezine." Please tell us about yourself. The more information you provide, the better we can tailor mailings to you and your interests.

Then it displays the fields you specified, such as First Name, ZIP code, and Interests. If you like, you can create a drop-down menu of several selections to choose from or provide checkboxes to indicate various interests. It's quite flexible, though text area boxes for comments aren't allowed. Though you can specify required fields on this second demographic information collection form, if the subscriber doesn't fill them out, that doesn't prevent him from subscribing, only from submitting the second form.

I like the ability to collect more information in a two-step process -- it can be very useful. But I see several problems:

• For many purposes, basic information might be better collected on the first subscription form, such as a first name along with an e-mail address. Topica doesn't allow you to do this, even if you know enough HTML to modify the first form.
• E-mail subscriptions are possible, but Email Publisher, unlike many similar e-mail marketing programs, doesn't pull out the name often associated with the e-mail address by the subscriber's e-mail program. All you get is the e-mail address.
• Since you can't add text to the second demographic info collection form, you can't provide any incentive to complete the fields you ask for, such as "free e-book when you complete this form." Requiring a field doesn't mean they can't subscribe if they don't supply it, it only means they may not complete the second form at all.

It is fairly easy to import text lists that include names, addresses, and other demographic information. I tried importing 18 names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, but the import didn't happen immediately. I received an e-mail informing me that this was complete about 8 hours after I had submitted it. Exporting subscriber information from Email Publisher is also quite easy. I found that zipped lists were e-mailed to me about 10 minutes after I requested them.

Audience Segmentation

Once you've either imported records with demographic detail or developed that data from your demographic info collection page, you can use this data to create "audiences" or specific sorts for subgroups of your subscribers. This is a very powerful feature, acting similar to the query function found in Microsoft Access, but much easier to set up. For example, you might sort for a range of zip codes that encompass Southern California, female gender, with skiing checked as an interest, and then use this "audience" to send a standalone e-mail promoting women's ski apparel available in your shop at Arrowhead Springs. The sort doesn't affect the overall list,so the same subscriber can be included in several different "audiences."

If you have two newsletter lists within your account, there's no easy way to combine the two lists for this specialized sort and e-mailing (short of exporting from one list and importing to another). You'd need to send out two separate mailings, one to each list.

Personalization

Email Publisher allows personalization in both the subject line and body of the e-mail message. Up to five fields of data can be set up with a personalization tag -- ${token1} -- that can be placed where desired. If the first name, for example, isn't available in the database, you can specify a word or phrase that would be substituted for it, such as "Friend" or "Customer." For most purposes, five personalized fields are probably enough, but I can think of some situations where it would be useful to personalize an e-mailing with first and last names, company, address, city, zip, and state.

Bounce Handling

Topica does a good job of handling bounced e-mails. Instead of deleting them according to a formula like Lyris, Email Publisher allows you to view the actual bounced e-mail addresses categorized by hard bounces (no such user at this address) and soft bounces (mailbox full, server not available). You can re-enable or delete bounced subscribers either one at a time or in a batch. The screen shows you how many times each e-mail address has been bounced and re-enabled so you can decide when it is time to delete an e-mail address entirely.

Help and Support

I found the help system generally good, but sometimes confusing. On a couple of occasions I found the help screens incomplete or misleading. There are some contextual help links that take you to specific help pages. When you click on the Help tab at the top of the page, it takes you to a table of contents of various help screens. If you know what you're looking for you're happy, but there is no way to search the help section for keywords if you don't know where to start. The system is good but needs to get better. Help is also available via e-mail. If you happen to find Topica's phone number and enter the menu selection for customer support, the chances are you'll receive a message saying all customer service representatives are busy and direct you to e-mail them.

Weaknesses

While Topica Email Publisher has many strengths, it also contains weaknesses. The lack of a simple way to subscribe people with their name is annoying. Nor can you add a new e-mail address with a name from the administrator's web interface.

I found the web interface confusing and not well designed. For example, I couldn't get to the personalization feature from the Publish tab where you'd expect to find it. Rather, I needed to know to go to Home | Advanced Features & Preferences | Personalization. The help system could use some help, as well. But a usability expert could probably transform Email Publisher's clunky interface into an intuitive marvel.

I was also disturbed that each e-mail contains the tagline and link "Delivered by Topica Email Publisher." This is a not a free service on which Topica has every right to advertise, but a paid service where the listowner should control who advertises.

The Bottom Line

However, I found a lot to like about Topica Email Publisher. It is priced well for small businesses and is novice-friendly. It's perhaps the easiest program I've seen to set up and get running with little experience or skill and, at the same time, produce professional-looking HTML e-mail newsletters or promotional e-mails that include e-commerce links. For many small businesses, this is all they'll need to conduct effective e-mail marketing. I strongly recommend it.