Little Miss No It All

If you’re a regular reader, you know that I am on the board for the Gateway Tennis Association. My grandfather founded Gateway as a way to create opportunities for recreational tennis to help grow the sport in St. Louis.

After my grandfather passed away in April, I started working closely with a group of AMAZING volunteers to take over his one-man-show.

For the last ten years, my grandpa ran the association himself, out of his home office. He sent out emails one at a time, to each member, inviting them to special events and helping tennis players find matches. Since he was retired, this system worked well for him.

Since I work full time, as do many of the other volunteers at the organization, we had to find a more efficient way to run things. We divied up responsibilities. I am in charge of the web site and email capabilities (naturally).

One of my coworkers suggested that we could use Mail Chimp to send out e-blasts for free. At work, we typically use more enterprise-level email engines like Silverpop, Listrak and ConstantContact. I had never even heard of Mail Chimp before, so I decided to do a little research and give it a try.

So far, Mail Chimp  is working really well for us. The free accounts are limited to under 500 subscribers. So, as our email list grows, we’ll probably need to upgrade to a paid account.

Until then, I can manage mailing lists and click-rates at the click of a button. If you’re looking for a way to promote your business or organization, I highly suggest that you look into a service like Mail Chimp.

Oh, and if you’re interested in Gateway, let me know. It’s a great group of people and we always welcome new members!