Emailing our newsletter for the first time to 800+

[jamie.hunt]

Hey guys,

I was hoping you could give me some advice.

I am wondering/looking at what is the best app, and also what is the best way of going about sending a high volume of emails on a mac.

I am using Snow Leopard. Our company has around 800 email addresses and we would like to start sending a html news letter to our clients every quarter.

I have so far looked at MaxBulk Mailer... But wondered if anyone has had success, and what they have been using.

I also understand different email clients have limits as to how many emails you can send. We are currently using .Mac/MobileMe.


I know there are online companies such as iContact but if possible i would prefer to have a little more control of what we send and all the details etc.

Any help, advice, or tips would be great. I would love to know the best direction to go in before I start!


Many thanks,

J

 

[pfealey]

Be very very careful about sending high volumes of emails from your own domain. The internet standard Spam filters such as Spam Cop et al will be very quick to blacklist your domain as a 'spammer' without you realising, thus causing major headaches with your normal day-to-day activities.

If your e-mail Marketing is designed for an audience of a list of addresses who have 'opted-in' to recieve e-mails from you, then why not use someone like dotmailer or mailchimp? That way you can track things like who specifically has opened your mails, how often, whether they clicked through to your website or not.

Part of my living is earned via heping design e-shots/e-zine campaigns for clients, and it's a fine art!

My advice, research a software solution thoroughly before making a decision. The company I work for at the moment went with Communigator (They picked that before I started, I'd have gone with DotMailer).

These companies charge for their services but set up full reverse lookups for your domain and correct MX records, sender ids etc. This all helps combat the Spam Filters. They're also on hand to help and advise when necessary. Their companies have made £millions from this business - they know their onions.

Finally, stay legal. You must include an option (and stick to it!) for people to unsubscribe from your communications.

 

[maflynn]

You'll need to send this out in stages, if you try to do it in one shot, your webhost or ISP will lock your account down for being a suspected spammer.

I'd contact your webhost/ISP to see how best to handle this.

 

[decksnap]

I would highly recommend using a service like constant contact or Mailchimp. How is it that you plan to track spam, opt-outs, click-throughs, etc without it?

Both of these systems allow you to build fully custom html designs of that is your concern.

 

[kiffles]

I've just stopped using Max Bulk Mailer after 2 years of using it to send out a monthly email to around 500 addresses. There's nothing wrong with the programme, in fact it's pretty good and very easy to use, unfortunately it's just nowhere near as powerful as Campaign Monitor or MailChimp when it comes to reporting on what people are doing with your email and managing your email lists.

With Campaign Monitor you can see reports on who's opened the email, what links they clicked, track them on Google Analytics if they visit your website, it also can manage forward to a friend and unsubscribes saving you time and adding to your list. They also have email checking tools for spam filters and popular email programmes like Outlook 2007, gmail etc and tools for adding their signup forms directly to your site.

In summary if you dont need to see any info on how your email campaign is doing maxbulk imo is the best mac app. If you want a few more stats I'd go for Campaign Monitor or Mail Chimp.