I need to send an email with a couple of attachments to, say 300 recipients, without the others knowing about it. I know I can got the BCC route, but was hoping for something better. It'd be awesome if the subject line for example was the same for everyone, but included something like a " - recipient name" at the end, so that when I get replies I can sort easier. Also I am wary of BCC in case I screw something up. Thoughts? Advise? Open to using a paid for product if it is really useful
Setup a mailing list at http://mailchimp.com, I think just 300 recipients would be free. Mass sending emails from a standard email address is a good way to get your address and/or IP blacklisted... and many ISPs block it. AT&T, Comcast and the like limit the number of emails you can send over their SMTP servers.
Hmmm... I know Mailchimp but never would have thought of it for this purposes. In my head it is always just internet marketing type stuff. This is definitely not that.... but i'll check it out. Thanks
It is for marketing, but I recommend it for email blasts too - so you don't get blacklisted. All it takes is one blacklister to flag you, and then everyone else catches on. And it is nearly impossible to be un-blacklisted. This happens all of the time. A user is compromised, their machine is used as part of a botnet, their employer IP block is blacklisted and then they must change their public IP range for emails to go through. It is even worse when your domain gets blacklisted, as it can take months to clear the blacklist.
I just played around with it for a bit... did a test or two. Not going to work. This is much more professional in nature. The email needs to at least "feel" professional and personal, even if it is also somewhat obvious it is a blast.
You aren't going to be able to send an email with variables like %SUBJECT% - %USERNAME% without the use of a third party tool (like MailChimp) or a form builder (like a PHP script). No major email client supports stuff like that, specifically to combat spamming.
Yep, fair enough. I'll probably just resort to "Mail Merge" so I can at least change some of the info in the email body, and have the emails sent out individually, instead of in an obvious Bcc manner. Won't help with the subject body, but works better for me. thanks!
Yeah, that wasn't a huge issue, just something that would have been nice. I am trying Mail Merge. I believe that I can change the body of the email based on an excel table I build. So theoretically, as long as I put in a table format, I can have the email vary as much as I want. In this case, I'll want to say: Dear "First Name" "Intro Sentence" Body Where First Name and Intro Sentence I may want to vary by email. I think Mail Merge can do that, so it seems pretty effective at what I want to do. Will Mail Merge work with an attachment?
