First mass email

1. what mechanism to use? 2. what to expect?

[intellivision]

Mechanism:

I've got 10k email addresses to send to. I'm going to do a quarterly newsletter with 3 or 4 teasers to website content (automotive site).

I could use phpBB to send out the emails (it has an "email all members" function).

or

I've got a Plesk virtual server, and in it I found Server > Mass e-mail messages > Send Mass E-Mail Message

or

ConstantContact email service?

or?

What to expect?

I'll test on my own Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail and [e-mail] addresses.

I need to of course unsubscribe those who want off.

Should I do 2k at a time?

Should I find a good email list manager first, and worry about sending the emails second?

Whew. I'm new at all this. Any thoughts appreciated.

[phranque]

this thread may have some useful information:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[rocknbil]

Whew. I'm new at all this. Any thoughts appreciated.

Before you send out your blast, you might want to read up on what is and what is not considered "spam." I don't see indications in your post that you've done all this, so, FYI.

Unsubscribing is not really enough. Your email must CONTAIN a working mechanism to unsubscribe. I'm not sure if "reply with 'Unsubscribe' in the subject" is sufficient. Most mailing systems contain a link and a working deactivation script.

Bottom line: any unsolicited email is spam. Even one. This can mean getting your web site blacklisted or worse [webmasterworld.com].

If you're hip to all this and game, I would say yes, 10K is going to put a very heavy load in any mail server. Do them in chunks. One of my clients uses regular mailings, and it's scripted on a cron job: X number per day, and it advances through day 1, 5, 7, and 13 letters, for example, until it gets to the end of the list. Unfortunately this is a very robust custom system.

SendStudio is an upcoming contender in the email marketing arena.