scopio

For the tech simple.

Just send them to 50 addresses at a time, all BCC so each can not see anyone else's address.

Just set up a 5 lists of addresses and get them to do a cut and paste of each list.

Done it for a charity numerous times now using BT Mail.

Thanks @Oliver341, this being for a small church where funds are short at this time because of COVID-19 and no donations being received at present that would be a non-starter.

I have used Mailchimp for this, they do a free plan.
the big advantages are they can (and by default do) put in all the contact info, and make unsubscribing easy. they also deal with all the bounce massages, and give various stats.

downside- it is usually flagged (correctly) as from a mailing list. ie may go into a bulk folder, or sometimes seen as junk ;-(

I just thought I would say something that nobody has said yet, or I haven't seen it said yet so I will say it here, sorry if I get a bit technical.

You can have all the software setup to create bulk emails using software like Mail Merge which gets a set of information from a database / spreadsheet and applies them to an email template, tbh I have never used this myself, but I have seen people using them.

But if that mail server sending all these emails at the same time are not setup with all the required software required these days to send bulk emails may / will get blocked and sending email address / mail server will get blacklisted.

So the sending mail server will need the following:

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance)
SPF (Sender Policy Framework)
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)
SRS (Sender Rewriting Scheme)

If these are not installed on the server sending the emails out you run the risk of getting blocked and then blacklisted.

We found out the hard way and it is a lot easier to get black listed than it is to get unlisted.

As far as I am aware going by the emails received from BT mail Servers like BT Staff and Openreach and Wholesale, they didn't have the above software installed, so they could get blocked, but the last email I have got from the BT Mail Servers was the end of 2017, so they might of updated their mail service.

I can say Gmail and the mail services owned and run by Microsoft use them plus their own stuff on top.

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

As far as I am aware going by the emails received from BT mail Servers like BT Staff and Openreach and Wholesale, they didn't have the above software installed, so they could get blocked, but the last email I have got from the BT Mail Servers was the end of 2017, so they might of updated their mail service.

Seems ok at the moment: https://i.imgur.com/vLhZOWU.png

That's good to know, I know they didn't do that back in 2017

Paul

I strongly suggest using a dedicated bulk e-mail service, & I also recommend MailChimp.

It has many technical advantages but also provides the 'housekeeping' that SHOULD accompany mailing lists including compliance with Data Protection & direct marketing & telesales (which I know this isn't but it is good practice to comply with the spirit of legislation). This includes Opt Outs, secure password protected data storage, avoiding accidental 'mail all' situations which would expose all recipients e-mail addresses...

Its just the right way to do this - & after relatively easy setup (its possible to import the e-mail address list from e.g. Excel) MailChimp can be used as simply as one needs, or can be expanded to quite a sophisticated level even on the free plan.

Another example of TBB at its best -- useful info gladly given by the experts, and especially useful in these lockdown days. Much appreciated, thank you.

Many thanks @longedge for pointing me in the right direction.

I have now tested the method you suggested and it is the right way to go as the lady that would be doing this is not that savvy but this method should be simple enough even for her to achieve.

The only drawback she will complain about is having to create the Address List from the beginning as it does not allow copy and paste of the email addresses which is the only field that is needed as the document is not for any particular individual but as a general news letter.

One thing that I have noticed is that you can create the Address List within Word that is saved as an Access database .mdb and is automatically saved to the Documents > My Data Sources folder.

Thanks a million again to all for your input.

Edited by deleted (Sat 11-Apr-20 15:10:13)