With running as many sites as I do, I make it a point to have Mailing Lists setup so it’s easier for me to get in touch with a large number of people with out having to keep a huge address book on Thunderbird. I have quite a few contacts that I’ve built up over the years, I don’t use them for regular mailings, but when something big is going on with say AGn Listings, for example, it’s good to know that I have that database to get in touch with the members.
There are many resources out there for running your own mailing-list. It’s important to know what kind of resources you’re going to need in relation to them as well. Don’t figure that the moment you launch your site that you’re going to have over 30,000 members on your mailing list and then purchase some $600 script to manage them all. When you first start out I’ve found that self-hosted scripts are pretty reasonable, and 99% of the time they’re free OR can just be found through your cPanel installation.
Naturally someone running a large business wouldn’t take this route and they’d look into outside companies like ResponseCom‚Ñ¢ to handle these things for them. Marin Worldwide is one of the largest and most successful mailing list providers in the nation which offer you customized mailing lists, Telemarketing lists and fax lists to both small businesses and fortune 1000 clients. If you’re looking for something on this scale then checking out martainworldwide.net would be a good thing for you.