How do I set Up a Mailing List?

HelterSkelter

Hi everyone,

can anybody throw a few suggestions my way on the best way to run a mailing list?

I currently have a list of several thousand e-mail addresses. I use Outlook Express to send e-mail announcments to these people. However, Outlook Express does not seem able to handle this large address book, it takes forever to add the names to the BCC field and even longer to send the e-mail. It can take up to one hour to send one e-mail!!

Is there some better way I can do this?

Thanks in advance.

steve-hosting36

Talk to a hosting company about getting a proper online mailing list service running, it should cost you no more than 60 euro a year, and would give yuo and your users better functionality and make posting and interaction simple and fast, as the server does all the work, not your pc or outlook,

HTH, Stephen

mneylon

Originally posted by steve-hosting36
Talk to a hosting company about getting a proper online mailing list service running, it should cost you no more than 60 euro a year, and would give yuo and your users better functionality and make posting and interaction simple and fast, as the server does all the work, not your pc or outlook,

I'd agree about setting it up server-side but would disagree about the cost. It would of course depend on the implementation and the volume, but you pay for what you get.

steve-hosting36

A small list of just a few thousand subscribers needs only the most basic of provisions. Any standard open source mailing list manager would handle the job without issue, and the price of about 60 euro a year is what we would charge

Steve

tomED

A lot depends on volume and frequency.

I agree with blacknight, you pay for what you get.....

steve-hosting36

Well, we run mailing lists for users with up to 250k subscribers, and I can tell you for a fact that a 60 euro a year provision will meet this posters needs.

'You get what you pay for' is often the argument of overpriced, uncompetetive providers, often used by the likes of Eircom. 'What you pay for' is a very subjective definition

HTH, Stephen

steve-hosting36

Even check out places like this on a trial basis - http://www.freelists.org/

dahamsta

What do you run the big lists on Steve, if you don't mind me asking? I have a 35k list but I wouldn't mind farming it out at some point in the future. Lists are a pain in the arse, this one in particular results in my mail server being blackholed for a week by AOL every time I send it out, despite the fact that it's fully confirmed opt-in.

adam

steve-hosting36

A couple of the biggies use listserv, and one or two have in-house concoctions...

HelterSkelter

Originally posted by steve-hosting36
Talk to a hosting company about getting a proper online mailing list service running, it should cost you no more than 60 euro a year, and would give yuo and your users better functionality and make posting and interaction simple and fast, as the server does all the work, not your pc or outlook,

HTH, Stephen

Hi Stephen,

Do you work for hosting 365? I see the basic package has mailing lists. Is it a matter of me just uploading the emails address to the site and I'm ready to go? I want something I can set up fast and easy. I don't want to bother with configuring any scripts. My current host are good but they don't offer mailing list facilities.

steve-hosting36

Hey,

Yep, you just paste the full list of emails into a box on the control panel (or upload a text file) with each seperated by a return character and away you go, couldnt be simpler

HelterSkelter

One more question, I just checked and I have almost 6000 e-mail addresses on the list. Will the system be ok with this?

steve-hosting36

`Shouldnt present a problem... we have a 30 day money back if you are not happy

HelterSkelter

cool. I'll talk to my current hosting company and ask them to providing a mailing list. If they won't, I'll switch to 365.