Bulk Emails to Membership

[captrncap]

Does anyone know of a free (hopefully) or low cost email program that can send over 1,000 emails via blind cc with an attachment? This is for a wing membership list and Gmail, yahoo seem to have some limits.

[Stonewall]

What ever program FL wing has, it works.  I get one or two emails a day from the "General List" distribution.  Basically when someone wants to send an email out to all wing members using the flwg.us email system, they can do it at will.

So far I don't feel as though I've been spammed too much with a majority of the emails being relevant to CAP and the wing. 

[JoeTomasone]

What ever program FL wing has, it works. 

It's Smartermail and it's not free (for that many users, anyway, a free 10-user version exists).

If you have/can build an email server, there are open source solutions.    Mailman is perhaps the best known.

[PhoenixRisen]

What ever program FL wing has, it works.  I get one or two emails a day from the "General List" distribution.  Basically when someone wants to send an email out to all wing members using the flwg.us email system, they can do it at will.

So far I don't feel as though I've been spammed too much with a majority of the emails being relevant to CAP and the wing. 

I'm not sure what the specifics are on the system California Wing uses, but we don't get "spam".  The e-mails sent out are closely monitored, IIRC.  CAWG has three lists, an "all distribution list" which sends out general information e-mails to everyone who's signed up; an ES list; and a Comm list.  All you have to do is send the e-mail you want to go out to a specific CAWG e-mail addy dedicated to that list, and it's gone.

[IceNine]

Google apps, Free (assuming you have a domain)

10 bucks on godaddy.com

[LtCol057]

Not sure what they're using, but NC Wing has something like you might be looking.  We have several different listservs. I've been on it for several years now, and haven't seen any spam.  The mail is very closely monitored. 

[Hobbsh1]

Does anyone know of a free (hopefully) or low cost email program that can send over 1,000 emails via blind cc with an attachment? This is for a wing membership list and Gmail, yahoo seem to have some limits.

I have not had to personally send bulk emails with the blind cc option at unit level (since unit emails can be gathered by those of that unit), but could you not send the email to yourself and bcc the wing list?  Would that work that way? Like I said, I have never sent bcc, just cc, so I'm not sure how it would work.  Just an idea.

[LtCol Hooligan]

^
Yes it does work that way- you can even leave the To: line blank.  The issue that you might run into is that people might forget to put the names on the BCc line and accidentally on the Cc line.  There is no bringing it back after that.  I have seen it happen twice where I work even.  You might try a mail merge in Office.  It might be cumbersome, but that could work.

[gistek]

I've been thinking about moving from a home-made database to a mailing list manager, so I used this post as an excuse to play with a few I found on www.download.com.

ePostMailer is listed as free, but is only free to try

PIMEX MailExpress4 free version limits the mailing list to 100 and doesn't allow attachments.

EmailDirector allows attachments and I didn't see any mention or mailing list size. I had some problems with the html editor, but was able to create a very simple html using Nvu and import it. If you use Word to create the html you will end up either sending some "nonsense" attachments in html mode, or nonsense at the top of the e-mail in text mode. One really big plus is that it explains the CAN-Spam laws and the templates generate the required note. I copied the note from one of the templates to Notepad, made a few edits, then pasted it into Nvu. There are a few buttons that are disabled unless you regi$ter. The ones I think I'd miss are the Scheduler, Partial Send, and Backup. The only thing that needs to be backed up is the mailing list and it has an export option. Not having Scheduler and Partial Send would be a problem if my e-mail server limits the number of recipients. I can get around that by having multiple groups, not too bad an option if my list isn't too long. The e-mail list management automation tools are disabled as well, so the mailing list has to be updated manually.

Gmail is another good option. If you create a group in your Gmail contacts list you'll have to update it manually.

Google Groups allows non-gmail members and members can manage their own accounts, including unsubscribing. I haven't played with importing from an existing mailing list though, so I don't know if it will do that.


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Nvu is a free, easy to use web editor available at www.nvu.com. 

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Here's the CAN-Spam text I use. I've replaced personal information with descriptives. You might also want to edit the data source information. I added the CAP Membership Report because that's where I get my e-mail address list.

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION: Your email information was entered into our database from the CAP e-Services Membership Report or by you or someone who wished to subscribe you to the <Mailing List>.

Your information will never be sold to a third party for purposes of marketing their products or services to you.

If you do not wish to receive our special offers and notices, please send an email to <unsubscribe email address>  with the text "Unsubscribe" in the subject of email. You can also write to us at  <mailing address for your organization>. We will promptly update your preferences.

Thank You,
<Name & Rank>, CAP
Public Affairs Officer
<Unit & wing>

[Pylon]

Here's the CAN-Spam text I use.

Just a note: The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 doesn't apply to CAP emails sent to CAP members.  These types of emails (blasts to your Wing, or Squadron or whatever) are considered "relationship" messages, since they already have a relationship with the organization and are therefore exempt from CAN-SPAM compliance.   So no worries with including statements, though an opt-out mechanism is nice.

If, on the other hand, one was blasting emails out to addresses gathered of local pilots or the general community and were sending out recruiting marketing emails, then they might need to comply -- though one would also need to identify their postal address in addition to the unsubscribe method provided.