Examples of What Mailing Lists Can Do For You

   
Announcement Mailing List
One-way lists, where only one or a selected few can post to all subscribers.

The WN Site-Updates List.
"Why Now" is a quality website, analysing current events. Popularly called WN, it's updated every 3 days. WN has many visitors, regular and irregular. Visitors wanted WN to provide a simple way of informing them when the updates had content of their interest. WN also understood that such a facility would induce greater traffic to the site. Thus WN need not wait for visitors to remember to visit and search the "What's New Page". And visitors would not miss reading material of  interest. WN's solution was a mailing list, to which visitors subscribe, at the website itself. Subscribers receive topic-wise summaries of updates, with their specific URLs, via email. WN is now perceived as being more current, friendly and a better service. Many irregular visitors are now WN regulars. WN's popularity and goodwil are at a new high.


FX Focus
Mehta is a Foreign Exchange expert.  He brings out a weekly newsletter, FX Focus,  giving summary of events, his views, advice for trades and other aspects of the market. Most readers prefer to receive it by email. As subscription increases, so does Mehta's time spent on administration tasks. Mehta then decides to use a mailing list system, as against his existing manual system. The system now  takes complete care of routine tasks like subscription handling, creating archives of  FX Focus searchable by email as well as on the related website, temporary problems is email delivery etc. And of course,  distribution of FX Focus is much smoother and faster, and is automated - Mehta doesn't need to supervise. He just posts the latest issue on the mailing list once, and does not even have to track non-deliveries. Mehta can now concentrate the content of FX Focus. Readers' satisfaction increases. FX Focus's subscription increases and it is progressively established as the pioneer and leader in the field.

Discussion Mailing Lists
Two-way lists where members can read and also contribute matter related to a common topic, building an atmosphere of conference, community, exchange.

  
Homeopathy Discussion List
Dr. Ghosh, a renowed Homeopath doctor and director of a Homeopathy institute, feels the need for a forum where doctors can meet and exchange experiences and problems. A weekly meeting in the city is possible, but this does not connect doctors across the country or the world. A magazine has its own overheads and long procedure and does not pratically encourage participation from all subscribers. Hence he starts a list for Homeopath doctors and students of Homepathy, to discuss the subject, exchange experiences and discuss cases and other practical problems. Once in a while patients are also allowed to take help and advice from the forum/mailing list. The mailing list increases Dr. Ghosh's reputation in his field, the practice of Dr. Ghosh and all other doctors is benefitted by the exchange and the list contributes to the progress of the field.


Arctic Fans's Instant Conference On Product Pricing
The fan industry has too many players. Arctic Fans competes on the basis of a wide distributor network and pricing strategies. With distributors in over 20 state capitals, retailers everywhere, and frequent price structure changes on the basis of new promotion schemes or competitor action. To implement this it has a 5 member team in its Marketing Office. MO5 incur huge phone and fax bills in communicating Arctic's promotion and pricing schemes to the distributors, fielding queries and garnering responses. Distributors also have to wait extra hours in office whenever a new scheme is to be announced. MO5 creates a private, closed mailing list with the MO5, distributors and retailers as members. Schemes are now announced and distributed to all concerned at once, without any time lag, on the list. Queries, ideas and market information are posted on the list by the distributors etc. as are the responses by Arctic. Problems are thus addressed faster and MO5 does not have to spend time separately with two persons having the same problem. Arctic responds to market changes faster, and distributor support and understanding of their marketing strategy has improved. From being a cost centre, MO5 has been redesignated as a profit centre. PO4, a sub-group of  MO5, is now implementing a similar system for the Purchase Department and Arctic's supliers..