email lists

anyone care to recommend software

[OddDog]

hi all, a client has a dead mailing list which they wish to reactivate.

does there exist specialist software to deal with mailing lists, or do i really have to make a group inside outlook.

ta..

[Mike12345]

Yep you can pay folk to handle it for you, i stickied you my suggestions.

:)

[amoore]

I recommend mailman from list.org. It has a web-based interface that allows your users to subscribe and unsubscribe easily. It also provides double-opt-in (or whatever it's called) to keep people from subscribing each other. It's open source and written in python.

Hope it helps.

[Mardi_Gras]

do i really have to make a group inside outlook.

That would be about the least desirable of all solutions. How many names on the list? Fewer than 65,000 and you can just put it in a simple Excel spreadsheet; more than that and you'll need a true database.

There are lots of programs out there to help you both handle large lists and send mail to them; for smaller lists you can mail from your dektop; for larger ones I definitely would recommend a hosted solution.

Don't forget that as you start mailing to that list you will need to be able to handle bounces and unsubscribes.

Follow up if you need more detailed recommendations.

[Busynut]

I've used the mojo mail cgi script which was easy to install and is very customizable. Since I'm not supposed to put urls in here you can do a google search on mojo mail if you have any interest in checking it out.

[gilmour]

Mojo is a nice little program but not for larger lists, I would assume that he's working on plugging in MySQL rather than using flat files which will help, but even then you won't be able to deliver more than 12K per hour...but at least it will stop puking.

Stay away from AcmeList (out of Singapore I believe)...it's more robust than Mojo but has has it's own set of unique problems, the least of which that it's a real pain to install.

In addition to the management limitations with Outlook, you will probably get in a little hot water with your ISP.

In retrospect I guess these are anti-recommendations.

[benihana]

gilmour, could you expand a little on acmelists problems?

I just installed the free version to try before buying the pro one, and it installed like a dream - 1 file upload, a quick chmod and it created all the database tables and admin pages automatically and was ready to run. (that said, I havent used for any 'live' mailings yet).

I would be very interested to hear what issues youve had.

thanks

[rharri]

Busynut,
I've looked at the mojo site but can't tell if there is a way for the user to indicate whether text or html should be sent. Is there such an option and, if not, how have you handled this problem?

Bob

[gilmour]

we purchased the pro version (using mod_perl) and had trouble installing it...even with them installing it, it became a drawn out process.

I wanted to like AcmeList, everything was pretty straightforward, and it had some good features built in.

We had major issues with AcmeList dumping everything into Qmail and as a result, flooding it. We spent weeks adjusting the concurrency and hiring a consultant to tweak Qmail,...finally just gave up and came to the conslusion that we got what we paid for.

Acme list will probably work well if you have smaller lists with a flexible send schedule.

[benihana]

gilmour - thanks
:)
what size lists were you using? if you dont mind me asking.

Im thinking around the 40-50k mark.

[gilmour]

benihana, AcmeList will be fine for drops that size,...I would guess that AcmeList would work fine for good quality, clean lists up to 200K-250K.