Bulk email programs

[Prognewb]

I'm looking to do a mass email campaign for my company (using only emails from people who have opted in to receive ads and newsletters from us, no unsolicited spam!), and I'm looking for a good bulk email program.
We had been using a hosted service for this, but we've had a few issues with them and I'd like to switch to using a progam on our network instead of doing it through a website.
I'd appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!

 

[Paul318]

Hi
I am in a similar situation to you, although I have not yet tried the web ones. I have been advised that these programs can be a nightmare. So I am open to any suggestions. Please could you let me know if anyone recommends a good one?
What was the web based one you were using, I have been told these are usually the best ones as they do not utilize the cpu and bandwidth of your network.
Paul

 

[ProtoVision]

I have been happy for a year with GroupMail from Infacta. It is cheap and simple compared to the expensive products from companies like Arial Software.

I've used it to send HTML e-mails to up to 80,000 at a time. It connects to my MS Access database and can handle multiple fields like firstname, email. It is flexible in how it connects to your mail server too (direct, SMTP auth, etc). In fact it can even do some intelligent macro processing on fields, such as capitalizing names, or inserting text like "Valued Customer" where no name exists.

The company also offers some web-based opt-out services that tie-in to GroupMail somehow. Haven't tried those.

Downsides is it occasionally crashes, but RARELY during a mailing. It usually crashes right away. It does a good job tracking to whom it has already sent, in case you need to restart a crashed mailing.

Also, it can only handle a small "opt-out" list (like 1,000 or so) internally, so I have to scrub all my unsubscribes using Access queries before sending.

Don't forget that if you use the same mail server to send your bulk and transactional mail, any penalties you receive for bulk mailing will hurt your ability to send your everyday mail.

 

[Prognewb]

We were using ConstantContact.
Right now I'm taking a look at SendStudio from Interspire, looks promising so far.

 

[Paul318]

Thanks for the update guys, I will look into your suggestions.

 

[lhuegele]

Outsource your bulk email needs! Topica is a great service provider for this.