I work at the College Park Aviation Museum in College Park, MD.  We (just like everyone else!) are looking for ways to cut costs, and one thing that we are focusing on is our mailing list.  We do several mailings a year for a calendar of events, a newsletter, and reminder postcards and flyers for upcoming events.

We are discussing the ways to do this and a few questions have come up.

1.  Will it make it easier to do this as an "all or nothing" enterprise -- meaning do we tell people that they get to pick email OR snail-mail.
2.  Have any of you noticed a drop-off in attendance after switching from a regular mailing list to an email list.
3.  What was the best way to gather the email addresses?
4.  What kind of list management software is out there?

Currently, our mailing list is at about 2000.  It increases at a fairly regular rate of about 25-50 names a month.  I have changed our visitor sign-in to ask for email addresses and for permission to send electronic communications.

We have also just launched our website:  www.collegeparkaviationmuseum.com and plan on using that to communicate.

I am very worried that we will lose attendance because direct mailings have been very successful for our programs.

I'd appreciate any feedback.

Thank you,

Brigid Nuta
Public Programs
College Park Aviation Museum
1985 Cpl. Frank Scott Dr.
College Park, MD 20740
301-864-6029
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