Sending bulk emails

I have been asked by a church which ISP would allow sending bulk emails (250) at a time. The church uses their ISP BT Mail at present, but they have problems when sending their church notices to their members whilst the lockdown is in effect.
Would appreciate if anyone has any idea on how to overcome the limits BT Mail sending bulk emails.

What is the limit?

I currently send regular mail shots to the patrons at our local Community Centre, who've asked to go on the list, simply by merging a Word document to email with addresses and names pulled from an Access database. Each one goes as a separate personalised email. I haven't got that many in my list (about 120 at the moment) but not had any problems up to now (touch wood), and it's never more than one mailshot in a month.

p.s. PlusNet (so BT family)

Edited by longedge (Fri 10-Apr-20 17:45:49)

Thanks @ longedge for you input.

So by what you are saying it looks as though a mail merge would be the way to go?

The church would need no more than 250 email addresses from an Access database.

If you have users who are not comfortable with Access, you can also draw the data for Word Mail Merge down from an Excel spreadsheet (and it will probably work from a table in a Word document).

It works for my modest requirements. Very simple database where I hold email address, first name, surname, date joined, phone number and a few False/True fields for GDPR confirmed, committee member etc. A couple of queries to populate normal mailshot and one for committee messages.

You could just as easily do it from an Excel file, I go for Access even for the simple jobs just to keep my hand in

If there were a limit of say 150, you could always do it in two goes.

Because every email looks as if it's personal from me to the recipient I get a lot of replies each time from people thanking me which always makes me feel a bit guilty . To send a mail shot takes me less than a couple of minutes.

Obviously there are commercial solutions that have no limits but having looked at a couple, I decided it was overkill for what I wanted. There are also free entry level solutions. The 'proper' solutions have all sorts of bells and whistles like automated joing/leaving, monitoring and reporting etc. etc. none of which I need.

The only downside I've come across is that you can't send attachments but since you can send as html, once again it suits me as all I ever need to do is include an odd graphic, posters and the like.

Generally for sending bulk emails you don't want to use a normal email because senders get blacklisted and blocked in spam filters. Instead you use a service to send them for you who do an all-inclusive service to manage the emails, unsubscribes and such like. It's this I fear that may be the problem you might be having.

For 250 emails, this isn't really a big deal, and you can use one of the most popular mailshot platforms for free: https://mailchimp.com/pricing/

Thanks @GonePostal

I am confident in using Access to create a database but this is for someone who is not that savvy and giving her instructions over the phone to create an Access database would be impossible for her to take on!

I am now composing a Word document with instructions on how to send a Word document to multi recipients using the mail merge functions in Word. I think this would be easier for her to understand.

What I would like to know is if this method is sent like @longedge says as "Each one goes as a separate personalised email."?

I should add that my mail client is Outlook, and yes every email is a separate entity.

It avoids one of the big mistakes people make when sending bulk emails, using mailing lists and sending every recipients address to every user - ideal for malware to harvest.

@longedge This person will also be using Outlook, so, if the email is sent as a separate entity that is a bonus.
Thanks for that.

A few other suggestions to look at:

https://sendgrid.com/pricing/
https://www.mailjet.com/pricing/
https://www.mailgun.com/pricing

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)