Here’s a user that would like to improve the look of his emails to his prayer supporters and donors. He’d love to improve the graphics and the look with a hyperlink index, etc. Can you recommend a program that can help him with this that is not to difficult or costly? Also, what program and/or method would you recommend to enable sending bulk emails? He would rather not use YahooGroups or something similar. Got any options? If so, just click “comment” below. Thanks!
Constant Contact: http://www.constantcontact.com
I agree with Joy!
Constant Contact is user friendly and worth the price.
http://www.constantcontact.com
We’ve been using iContact for quite a while and have been very pleased. They are less expensive than Constant Contact, have more templates, more storage space (for images and such), survey tools, unlimited subscriber lists, public newsletter archives, autoresponders, rss feeds and blogs, all included in the monthly fee ($9.95 per month).
The tech support is great, although you’ll probably not need it. They have whitelisting agreements with all the major ISPs.
One feature I like is the “spam checker,” which analyzes your message and assigns a score from 1 to 5, with 1 being the best (not likely to be considered spam by most spam filters).
With iContact you can use one of their 300+ professionally prepared templates, or you can create your own.
I can’t say enough good things about the service; we are very pleased with it so far, and we have been using it for over a year now.
Take a look at http://www.madmimi.com It is a simple way to do bulk mails. Not expensive. No need to learn HTML for graphical emails. Drag and drop graphics which can be made “clickable.” The tracking feature (who opened, who clicked, who unsubscribed, etc.) is very helpful. Also moves “bounced” emails to a list – which makes mail list maintenance a breeze. Free trial available.
I forgot to include a web link:
http://www.icontact.com/a.pl/153411
Disclaimer: if you use the above link to join iContact, our organization (Myanmar Hope Christian Mission) will receive a 25% commission. But this is not why I added a comment about iContact – we really do love the service.
mailchimp.com, they allow you to pay as you go or by monthly fee. Pay as you go is cheaper if you send emails once a month or every two months. Also %15 discount for non profits. They have all the usual tools and tracking.
If you are using MS Word 2003 or later, you can use Word as your editor and then mail merge to a list of emails – that way it sends the mail one at a time and avoids being tagged as spam because of to many in the address box. Look under help in Word.
Here is a FREE Bulk email program that actually works. I just tested it and sent out one email message to 392 addresses!
All you need is a google account and a copy of your address list in .CSV format.
The directions say to use Notedpad but you can export directly from Outlook or Outlook Express into a .CSV file that opens with Excel.
I did my test using the Excel .CSV file and it worked just fine. Just remember to export the email addresses ONLY, not the names.
You can also send attachments. If you don’t want to send attachments you have to have it pointing to an empty folder.
Here’s the link to get the program: http://sourceforge.net/projects/sandamail/
sclouser,
Does that program have any tracking or reporting features? Most people sending out email newsletters want to see who opened the newsletter, and when; what links in the message were clicked on; how many messages “bounced” due to bad email addresses or downed servers, etc. etc.
If you have MS Word and Outlook 2003 you can make very nice emails with graphics, including hyperlinks and animated graphics, right in Word. I haven't figured out columns that transfer yet, though. Then you can copy and paste into a new Outlook email, and send it out with your Outlook program, without spending any money!
If you do want to purchase a bulk email program that does send individualized emails and is an Outlook add-in for about $40.00, & works great, check out emailMerge 4Outlook at http://www.addins4outlook.com/emailmerge/default.asp
You can send bulk but individualised emails using Mach5 emailer. It is free for less than a certain number, and you get a non-profit discount to buy the full version.
Blessings
Tony
I use VerticalResponse.com. Peter’s Wife Newsletter is sent using this program.
The charge is .015 cents/email–no other charges.
They maintain the address list.
The html formatting is as simple as it gets or with enough options for the power user.
They subscribe to the CAUCE, which protects clients from spamming. Emails sent from them almost never get stopped for spam.
Diane
For newsgroup style emails I of course use http://www.strategicnetwork.org (as I’m the manager–grin). For personal newsletter and mailmerge I use campaignmonitor.com, which is less expensive than other things I’ve found (including Constant Contact) and very easy to use.
Netzero.com will provide you a free email account, and I don’t think sending msgs has a limit on number of recipients per msg.