TECH: Bulk e-mail software?

Subject: TECH: Bulk e-mail software?
From: aussiebloke
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 12:30 AM

Greetings all

I manage a web-site for my folk club http://www.topendfolkclub.org and I also send an occasional e-mail newsletter, "The Broadside".

Sending the e-mails is a pain in the neck using Outlook Express, as it has a limit of 50 addresses per e-mail. I have tried a couple of freebie programs and even paid for one (which didn't work, and I'm now in a tussle to get my money back; but that is a separate story).

Anyone have a recommendation for a good freebie bulk e-mail program?

Cheers all

aussiebloke

Subject: RE: TECH: Bulk e-mail software?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 04:54 AM

Have you looked at Outlook? If you've got one of the new tinkertoy office versions it may be omitted, but most people who have OE would have Outlook as well.

I don't use it, so I'm not really the one to give advice, but it does include the ability to use a "distribution list" and doesn't indicate any limit on number of addressees in Outlook Help.

Even if there is a limit, the ability to click on a list folder and send to everyone in the folder, rather than adding names individually, would make it much simpler to send to groups of xxx people by splitting your mail list into smaller separate dist lists, perhaps.

A disadvantage is that as it's described in the Help info, all the people on the list show in the "To:" box for all who receive it, which means that everyone who receives it has the email addy of everyone else who receives it. This is considered impolite by some and criminal by most recipients.

Someone more familiar with Outlook might be able to tell us whether a distribution list can be forced into the BCC: box where it should go.

There also appears to be a "mail merge" option in Outlook, that would address separate "mails" to each person in a "mailing list." Ability to port a mailing list to email is implied but the Help file doesn't give much detail. It might be obvious if/how it would work if I actually had a working account and address book set up in Outlook.

John

Subject: RE: TECH: Bulk e-mail software?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 05:15 AM

Every webspace provider I've ever used has offered web-based mailing lists of some kind as part of the package. These are intended for discussion but can be usually be configured as 'announcement' lists (that is, nobody can reply to them) and the addresses of recipients are not displayed. If you are using 'free' space from your ISP, you won't have that option; otherwise, I should talk to whoever you rent from. The facility may already be available to you.

Subject: RE: TECH: Bulk e-mail software?
From: Grab
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 06:50 AM

Probably stating the obvious, but:-
- will your email newsletter include details of how to unsubscribe?
- will the unsubscribe system actually work if the recipient doesn't know their username or password (ie. they can just say "don't send any more to this email address")?
- will the email be sent out BCC, so that subscribers don't see other subscribers' emails?

I've subscribed to a few mailing lists which have hit these problems. Manually-run lists are mostly OK, but automated ones can be a pain if they're not set up right. A particularly bad example was the Archers Addicts group which my wife subscribed to (on my email address) and then wanted off when she got her own email address. She couldn't remember her login details, there was literally no way to unsubscribe under the automated system if you didn't know your login, and the admins weren't interested in helping. I had to threaten them with a formal complaint to their ISP under anti-spamming rules before they took any notice. :-(

Graham.

Subject: RE: TECH: Bulk e-mail software?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 07:25 AM

I send house concert invites on MS Outlook to 75 addresses using a distribution list - no problem. I need to remember to put one name in the "to" area - myself or Dick and then attach the list in the blind carbon area. There isn't a formal unsubscribe, but I sometimes include a "let me know if you no longer wish to receive this".

Subject: RE: TECH: Bulk e-mail software?
From: Bernard
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 09:38 AM

A much simpler solution is to set up a 'Yahoo!' group... you can manage it online, others can email the group or not, according to how you set it up, and all you have to do after you've added names to the list is send an email to one address, and the Yahoo group system will automatically send it to everyone on your list with the group name inserted in the subject field.

As you will be one of the members (owner and moderator), the message will also come back to you so you can check it was correct.

Other useful features include being able to add a few different eamil addresses for the same person so they can send emails from home or work (for example), but only one address needs to be set up to receive if desired.

Our Morris side have been using it for years, as it has the advantage that any permitted member can send messages to the rest of the group without having to maintain an email list.

No special software is needed, either.

Subject: RE: TECH: Bulk e-mail software?
From: Bernard
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 09:40 AM

What's an eamil? Have I just invented something?

Subject: RE: TECH: Bulk e-mail software?
From: Nick
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 11:12 AM

I've used this in the past - Sprika and it worked fine

Subject: RE: TECH: Bulk e-mail software?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 06:08 PM

Find a Listserv and set up a discussion there that sends out email to all subscribers. If yours is an arts type of association you may find a municipal setup or a university that offers free access to a discussion list. They can be moderated or wide open, and you can set them up so you approve all posts, meaning you see the spam but it doesn't go through because you don't approve it. And you can set up a spam filter to catch most of that.

SRS

Subject: RE: TECH: Bulk e-mail software?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Aug 07 - 09:34 PM

I'm with Bernard - Listserv used to be the way to go, before the e-groups thing came along. Yahoo bought them out, of course.

The Yahoo groups way is the dead no-brainer way, but it is very sophsiticated once you get experienced - and you can even have people join and leave all by themsleves - the listowner is the only one who needs to know who is on the list - this reduces the chance of your list getting consumed by the spammers.

Having the group name in the subject field allow the receiver to auto-steer the mail to a special mailbox.

Subject: RE: TECH: Bulk e-mail software?
From: aussiebloke
Date: 04 Aug 07 - 04:41 AM

Thanks all

I'm going with Nick's suggestion of the Sprika option for the moment.

I manage many names and addresses on a good old-fashioned spreadsheet, and I wanted to be able to copy the e-mail address column to a text file, and import that to an e-mail program a few times a year.

Each edition of the Top End Folk Club e-mail newsletter does indeed provide information about how to unsubscribe from the TEFC mailing list. Requests to be removed are promptly honoured, in that I manually edit the spreadsheet so that individual is not included the next time I export a list.

If any 'catters want to subscribe to the Top End Folk Club mailing list to see how it all turns out - please contact [e-mail], or visit http://www.topendfolkclub.org
cheers all


aussiebloke

Subject: RE: TECH: Bulk e-mail software?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 05 Aug 07 - 01:41 AM

As a past secretary/treasaurer.president/etc of many clubs, I can however assure you that your present decision still leaves you with a large amount of manual work to maintain the list of email addresses, which the e-groups thing mostly eliminates. The Yahoo groups thing can also be set up so that only the owner of the list can post, something which has not been mentioned before - thus it can function as a normal sort of post-out newsletter. You can control who can join as well. You can also setup a data base there as well, which can have all your current data - exportable and loadable to any other app you want.

Of course I had ASS-U-MEd :-) that you might want a regular output much more often than just a few times a year, and what you have chosen seems adequate for what you want.

Good luck with your decision. If it does what you want and you are happy, that's all that really matters, in the long run.

Subject: RE: TECH: Bulk e-mail software?
From: aussiebloke
Date: 11 Aug 07 - 12:42 AM

Thanks all for your interest.

I'm still a couple of days away from sending the first Broadside using Sprika Lite-mail. I have it installed and have saved a 'project', which includes both an imported mailing list and the message in html, which is the exact combination of functionality I have used in the past and was looking for again.

I swap html codes between web-pages and e-mails, the e-mail I want to send is more or less the revised front page of the club web-site: http://www.topendfolkclub.org.

As for the management of the mailing list itself, I acknowledge that there is a fair manual component, but that is no biggie a few times a year. I'm not very clever, but I'm good at repetitions :)

Grab, you are quite right, mailing lists have to be set up and managed properly; cop this: A muso friend of mine tells the story of a list he subscribed to some time ago - it had a facility where each message submitted by e-mail was automatically forwarded to each member of the group. There was an occasion where a group member set an 'auto-reply' in his e-mail client so guess what happended? An endless gemetric progression of forwarded replies to each member until a server crashed.

I won't be doing that.

cheers all

aussiebloke