"E-mail is broken" the headlines say on a regular basis, but e-mail remains the least expensive direct marketing option companies have today. Reading those doom and gloom stories always tickles my sense of irony.

Marketing experts tell small businesses the value of staying in touch with current customers and reaching out to potential customers. If you believe postcards give better value, realize that postage for 500 postcards is $120, and that doesn't include the cost of designing and printing the postcards. Sending the same message via 500 e-mails is free if you do it yourself, and pretty inexpensive if you rely on an e-mail service bureau to handle the messy details of list signup, upkeep and management.

Most companies start their e-mail campaigns themselves because it is essentially free. But your first do-it-yourself e-mail marketing attempt is typically a revelation. Messages bounce, and the e-mail design you carefully worked on will get skewed by some e-mail clients. Worse, some recipients will accuse you of sending spam and start threatening you with CAN-SPAM violations and lawsuits. Others may block all future mail from your domain in a sad, but common, overreaction. Suddenly your "free" e-mail takes two days of a real person's time.

My curiosity about e-mail marketing service peaked when I first heard a commercial for Constant Contact on WRR FM, the oldest classical music radio station in Texas. Nothing says a technology has reached the mainstream like advertising on mass media.

And of course Constant Contact isn’t alone. There are 65 entries in Yahoo's business-to-business directory for opt-in direct mail services (although it's actually direct e-mail, and some companies offer both). The list of optional services can run pages, but all services offer a similar set of features with a few extras depending on the company. All offer a test drive option so you can see what you're getting before putting money on the table.

Yet the amount of money doesn't add up to much for most companies. Constant Contact charges by the number of names in your e-mail list. You can e-mail those names once or ten times per month for the same price. JangoMail charges per e-mail sent, regardless of whether you send 1,000 messages in one release or 10 messages to 100 customers per month. All services offer custom pricing, especially when you start sending a bunch of e-mails.

James Gaskin writes books (16 so far), articles and jokes about technology and real life from his home office in the Dallas area.