To be honest, right now i would say the best way to bulk email is don't! People are so fed up with bulk email that you really risk ruining your reputation if you use it. The problem you'll have is that if you farm your emailing out to *any* 3rd party, chances are they've had a bogus run either because they were overenthusiastic in their own lists, or they allowed another customer to abuse their services. You'll get lumped in with that activity and find yourself on blacklists and answering questions from your ISP about your emailing activities. I have yet to see *any* bulk emailing outfit that wasn't involved in spam in some fashion.

BCCing isn't a bad method because you maintain complete control over your list. Yes, it would be nice if every recipient could see their own address in the "To: " field, and i'm sure there are some programs you can download that will send out emails from your own computer one at a time as a batch job. Keep your emails short and professional, don't overload them with graphics, avoid HTML-formatted email, include complete contact information in every mailing, and immediately remove everyone who asks to be removed. That should keep you in the clear.

I get SPAM - I block the server. If you send out bulk email you will become known as nothing but a SPAMMER and your work as a video anything will be in the toilet and discounted as trash regardless of talent or quality.

If I don't know the sender (or it is blank) or it is not a message subject that I need to look at I simply delete without reading and insert rules to block that server - nothing gets opened with RE unless I know I sent out the original.

Just my $0.02.

Chienworks and birdcat – I guess there is an important distinction to be made. I am not talking about mailing to bought/rented/harvested/whatever lists, i am talking about ways to email large number of people who are already bought into what is going on in your organization (because we are a camp, a lot of people consider us a very important part of their lives). The ways that we as an organization find new clients (for lack of a better term) does not involve email. For us the challenge is how to stay in touch with (using email or not) with people who want to stay in touch with a place that has been an important part of their lives.

I agree...you do have to be very aware of becoming associated with SPAM. A lot of this has to do with list management. there is a significant portion of our clientele and supporters who prefer to be updated by email. This is really our big challenge right now, not so much finding a program or service that can send lots of emails, that is relatively easy, but in creating a list of people who want to get emails from us, and then allowing them easy unsubscribe. Our plan is to drive all of this through our web site (right now we don’t, and we don’t do much email marketing (but we do some)…as I said we are in the process of building a system to do it right, partly because in the past, others in this organization have used relatively low standards for email marketing) using double opt ins, one click unsubscribe etc. This is a big challenge, we have a very good list of 11000 regular mail addresses we have developed (these are people who have direct associations with our camp, or have asked to be on the list), but our email list is junk, and is basically not worth the HD space it takes up.

I guess my point is that there is that there are good reasons and situations for bulk email if it is done right….well, at least I hope so…we will find out….and we could be wrong…

Honesty, I hope that someday RSS will become the preferred method for us, we could have 4 or 5 rss feeds that people could subscribe to if they want…no email, no list management, no spam problems…at least until rss gets hijacked like email has.

K, sorry that was long. But I wanted to put my perspective out there and get some response. I really do want to know where I am right and wrong, because this is something that is, and could be a really big deal for me. Nick, I hope I am not hijacking your thread, but it is an important thing to consider: in the end what program you use to send your email is a lot less important then who you send it to, and why.

Ben

Take a look at Constant Contact and see if they suit your needs.

Thanks for the replies guys.

I should really refer to it as "managing a large mailing list" rather than "bulk emailing" which has such conotations with spamming. I'm only talking about email addresses from my previous customers and who've registered for my mailing list, not blind spamming.

I wonder how the likes of Sony, VASST and Creative Cow do it and stay out of trouble.

Constant Contact is permanently banned here on my networks. I've received thousands of spams from them before i finally blocked them. The excuse was always the same ... "we thought you would like the information we send out". Pity it was never anything we had asked for or signed up for. It wasn't just viagra or fake watch scams either. Lots of the senders were fortune 500 companies selling legitimate products. Constant Contact either allowed them to upload unverified lists, or helped supply unverified lists.

Neb, i have nothing against bulk email, as long as it is sent only to those who request it. The problem is, once you involve a 3rd party sender, you have no way to guarantee that anymore.

I'm only talking about email addresses from my previous customers and who've registered for my mailing list,...

Then Constant Contact would be perfect for you.

Kelly, CC does not provide lists, period. The subscriber to the service is responsible for that.

I've come across a free utility called "Solway's Multimail" which basically just reads the recipient's names and addresses off of a simple text file you give it. Just Google the name.

one that we use at church (not to spam people...to stay in contact with a few thousand)

is dadamail

http://mojo.skazat.com/


you have to have your own hosting and then install it. Once you get it working, it's excellent.

Sean
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broadcast voiceovers

"The problem is, once you involve a 3rd party sender, you have no way to guarantee that anymore."

agreed...That is why right now i am more interested in programs like broadcastHTLM. BroadcastHTML is just a mail client, you buy it and use it. It sits on my computer and gives me list managment tools, as well as an automated way to send lots of emails. I would own everything and control everything.

ben

I have to say I agree with Chienworks. I get bulk mail from good people I like to deal with like DV magazine etc. and it still pisses me off. Bulk mail is out of fashion. Try some form of subscription data base or forum.

If you're trying to contact people cold I think you need consider web or magazine advertising.

This was a repeat message deleted. Why does this site still allow duplicate postings?

After placing the only order ever with them, Zsounds still sends at least 2 a week, since I ordered those M-audio 5.1 LX4 speakers, ages ago. Normally, I'd hate that, but I'm a musician and the kid in me still likes looking at that stuff, so I let them keep coming.
At least the Supermedia store backed off after a couple of months. Meritline is also pretty good about that. Ebay is bad. Caligari is driving me nuts, I never even bothered trying the download. Serif can be bad, but they back down from time to time.
Sony is fantastic....I never get anything from them, except when a new version of Vegas is out. Vasst is about perfect, not too many, about 1 a month.