Bulk email sending - best solution

[kapow]

I have several website clents who wish to email a monthly newsletter. Their mailing lists will range from 300 to 3000 subscribers.

I currently use Microsoft Outlook for sending mail but havn't used it for groups of 300 - 3000.
- Can anyone say if Outlook can handle groups of that size?
- Is it ok to store my groups on my Pair account (MySql table) and use php to send news?
- If I send the newsletters from my home-office what mail client is best?
- I have never used Pair Mail and don't know anything about it - can they do it?
- Is there recommended mail service that will handle this for me?

Any guidence would be much appreciated

[DaveAtIFG]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld kapow! I was hoping someone with some experience would jump in and offer some help. Some opinions:

I avoid using MS email clients completely, too little security! Your questions re:Pair would be best handled by Pair support or exploring Pairs support info here [pair.com]. Not much help so far, I'm afraid.

I'll try to round up an expert though, call attention to your post in the mods forum. Hopefully someone can do better...

[eljefe3]

Try [infacta.com...]

They have a free mail client that lets you send filter, personalize and do a lot of stuff that the paid versions do. I tried many bulk email programs and this one seems very simple and powerful.

It gets the 5 stars , 5 cows etc from the various respected software review sites.

[rcjordan]

Also take a look at Postcast [postcast.com]. I recommended it as a possibility to manage a book publisher's newsletter (approx. 1,800 subscribers as I recall). They purchased it and gave it high reviews for performing as billed. The only negative was the documentation. Perhaps that has been improved over the last few months. A trial version should help resolve any questions prior to spending any cash. (I have no affiliation with Postcast.)

[bartek]

Try TheBat! from [ritlabs.com...]
It has powerful management capabilities for mailing lists (and then some). Their FAQ page has a pre-made downloadable mailing list setup and a step by step guide. It's been my choice for about three years now - worth a try.
hth

[doulos]

Check out

[mailutilities.com...]

Great program that sends email without using a SMTP server...

[kapow]

Thankyou everyone
My two best options seem to be:

1. [infacta.com...]
Does anyone know if this has a facility to generate sub/unsub lists from my websites? Or to copy&paste the content of a text file of sub/unsub lists?

2. [mass-emailer.com...] with 'Subscribe Me lite' ( [cgiscriptcenter.com...] ) on site to generate sub/unsub txt list that can be inported.

Any votes on how I should choose?

[hoffa2]

I want to keep an email list in a text file and have a program or something that deletes them when they sent a "unsubscribe" email. How or what would I use to do this?

[kapow]

Hi Hoffa
Since I posted this thread I have started using 'GroupMail Pro' from www.infacta.com
I am pleased with it. It has automated Sub,UnSub and Bounce handling (although I am yet to use those functions). It will import and export a text file of email addresses - so I can keep my mailing lists in separate text files or within GroupMail.