PoliteMail ($99 for standard version; $495 for professional) is a new software program from Bootstrap Software Partners that allows do-it-yourselfers to create, manage and track e-mail directly from within Microsoft Outlook, in theory saving time and money and letting you manage contacts and e-mail campaigns in the same software program. Unfortunately, PoliteMail has fewer features than most Web-based programs and is difficult to navigate.

PoliteMail integrates with, and extends the usefulness, of Outlook. Open Outlook, and you're opening PoliteMail, too. The program adds its own toolbar as well as its own window pane. Individual messages can be composed and sent as one would normally do with Outlook, with the added value that even one message can be tracked — a really cool feature. It also allows for A/B split testing.

However, there are issues with PoliteMail that reduce its appeal for the small business owner: a confusing user interface, an extensive learning curve, bugs and quirks and lack of needed features and flexibility.

Interface Needs to be User-Oriented
Why does anyone open a software program? To do something, correct? Unfortunately, you need to click on just about everything to get anything done in PoliteMail. The major navigation buttons are "PoliteMail," "Tracking Default," and "Mailing Lists." These are located on the toolbar that is added to the normal Outlook toolbar upon installation. To say it is not user-friendly is being polite, no pun intended. A very simple way to improve the interface would be to have toolbar tabs that center around the types of things a user would want to do, for instance, Create, Manage, and Track, as in Create a mailing list or campaign, Manage a mailing list or campaign, etc.

A Steep Learning Curve Wastes Time
One of the reasons PoliteMail takes so much time to learn is that there is so much to learn. The width and breadth of capabilities is both a positive and a negative. It can do a lot, but, because it is DIY-oriented, there's a lot to learn first in order to exploit all those capabilities.

Some things are easy to read once and remember for later use. Some tasks take time to find and comprehend and will require additional Help visits. One plus is that PoliteMail has one of the better Help sections I've seen. This section is categorized into chapters, such as "Creating A Message," "Managing Contacts," and so on. Many software programs have Help sections that explain what something is while this one actually explains how to do something, though with multitudes of embarrassing misspellings and some confusing instructions. If you're going to use this software, be very thankful for a decent Help section because you're going to need it. There's a lot to learn.

Bugs and Quirks
I'm sure some of PoliteMail's bugs are inherited from Outlook, which can be very buggie itself. Other things are PoliteMail's own technical bugs. Here are just a few examples to give you an idea:

• You can't schedule an e-mail campaign for broadcast at a later day or time. Click 'send' and away it goes, almost instantly, overriding any 'send time' setting you may already have in Outlook. You know that signature you forgot to add? It will have to wait until next time.
• Outlook allows sent messages to be stored in any folder you desire. However, PoliteMail overrides this organizational feature. It will not allow sent messages to be stored in any folder other than Sent Items. If you want the sent message stored elsewhere, you are forced to either set up Outlook rules, or remember to go in to your Sent Items folder every so often, and manually drag sent messages to folders where you may prefer them to be stored.
• Sometimes when you open a message that you've received, then close it, the message will show as Unread (will be in bold), regardless of the amount of time you had the message opened.
• At times, after you compose a message and click Send, a window will appear that reads: "Outlook has saved a draft of this message, do you want to keep it?" Why would I want a draft if I'm finished composing and am sending the message?
• PoliteMail allows the user to change the name of contact categories. For example, in my business, customers are referred to as clients. So, I wanted to change the default category "Customers" to "Clients". Some nonsensical clicking ensued: PoliteMail > Setup & Preferences > Account Admin > and, finally Contacts & Accounts. (Wouldn't a "Contacts" option within a "Manage" toolbar tab make life just a tad easier for the user?) Next, I change the "Customer" category title to "Clients". However, the change does not appear in the PoliteMail window pane; the category is still listed as "Customers."

Changing, for example, "Customers" to "Clients" will not be reflected in the Contacts List in the Create A Message window pane.

Web-based Programs Still Rule
When comparing PoliteMail with similar Web-based programs, the latter have the edge. Consider that such services offer:

• multitudes of attractive, easily customizable templates for every occasion - it's far easier to customize a web-based program's templates based on the amount of products you may be featuring as far as lining them all up, creating additional rows of products and the like.
• coordination between a Web site's newsletter sign-up box so that a subscriber completes a customized sign-up form, and receives a customized notice of subscription via e-mail, as well as the fact that the subscriber's info is automatically added to your list;
• automatic converting of messages to text-only for those recipients who do not receive HTML email;
• additional neat features you can use on your site such as a customer gift reminder and send-Web-page-to-a-friend; and so on.

Price/Benefit Favors Web-based Programs
Web-based e-mail marketing programs are priced by the month based on list size; the bigger the list, the greater the monthly fee. But, the more you send in a given month, the more economical they become because you're paying just one monthly fee. PoliteMail is priced by the amount of email sent, as low as one-cent per message sent. So, it's hard to compare costs.

PoliteMail's reporting features are roughly the same as what you would expect from a Web-based system.

The one truly addicting benefit I find about PoliteMail is the ability to track, without having to leave Outlook, individual messages sent to just one person. (Did that one, good prospective client open my message? When? How many times? Did she open my attached proposal?)

However, PoliteMail's pay-as-you-go pricing, the ability to work from within Outlook, and the contact management feature do not outweigh, in my opinion, the ease of use and full-featured nature found with so many Web-based e-mail marketing programs.

Trying to accomplish what Bootstrap Partners is trying to do with its PoliteMail Outlook add-in is a daunting challenge and I applaud them for the effort. My guess is that later versions will close the feature gap with Web-based vendors. Once there's a user-oriented interface, bugs are ironed out and features are more in-line with Web-based programs, the significant difference between the two options will be PoliteMail's integration with Outlook. At that point, PoliteMail will win hands down.

To form your own opinion, take advantage of PoliteMail's free trial, as well as a Web-based program's such as Constant Contact. And, be sure to let us know your thoughts.

Steve DiPietro is a contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com.

Do you have a comment or question about this article or other e-commerce topics in general? Speak out in the SmallBusinessComputing.com E-Commerce Forum. Join the discussion today!