Ask TUAW Video Edition: bulk emailing
Jerry writes to us this week asking how to send mass emails and have them personalized.
Software shown this week:
- MaxBulk Mailer - retails for US$50-60 dollars
Remember, you can leave us questions in the comments! The video is on the next page.
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Source: http://tuaw.com/tag/asktuaw
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Jerry writes to us this week asking how to send mass emails and have them personalized. Software shown this week: MaxBulk Mailer -...
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Please can you recommend an app that automatically sync's a USB memory stick to a folder on my Mac (in both directions) that is triggered when plugging the stick in?
Thanks
Jude
I've always enjoyed MailChimp. You can get it to do everything. It's considerably cheap for what I get out of it.
LaptopBackpacksAndBags.com
I totally agree with Simon, when it comes to email marketing, you simply can't do this on your own home machine, and are much safer using an email marketing company.
The two "big boys" are:
http://www.getresponse.com (Get Response)
http://www.aweber.com/?222304 (Aweber)
Both will do the job in a much more professional manner, without risking your ISP banning you, and with much better delivery of your emails.
To both Simon and Steve -
Jerry isn't looking to do email marketing nor sending emails to thousands of people. But when he wants to send to like 20-30 people something like this would be adequate.
As said in the video, if he's doing a lot he needs to talk to his ISP before doing so - some might not let him, so he would have to use an online service.
If you are looking for a smaller-scale solution, an app called "MailShot" uniquely lets you create distribution lists that you can use as contacts in all your favourite Mail apps, just like it was built into your device.
Its free to try, and with an in-app purchase you can mail up to 50 people from a single contact (ISP permitting). www.iTunes.com/apps/MailShot for details.
We would love to see this app covered on TUAW some time, as we know it'll be of interest to anyone who regularly emails groups of friends, team mates or work colleagues.
Full disclosure, I'm the developer :).
Peter
solubleapps.com/MailShot
Having used both Maxbulk and Direct Mail, I've landed on Direct Mail. I consistently send out 5-10k emails a week (to a community of readers that are expecting my email) and Direct Mail is simply awesome. Lots of power, fast setup, easy importing of CSVs with custom fields. Lots to love there.
To Simon's point, make sure you are using a whitelisted SMTP service. I used Direct Mail's S3 Service (I think thats the name, you buy credits to send emails essentially) but we've not switched everything over to www.sendgrid.net
Sendgrid has made email consistently delivered, with great tracking and an API to handle bounces / spam reports, etc.
DirectMail + Sendgrid = love.
Thanks for the love, Cog! We're glad you like Direct Mail. We've got some awesome updates coming in the next few weeks that I think you'll really like.
Speaking to Simon's point above, yes, deliverability is an important consideration when sending email using desktop software. This is why we created e3 Delivery Service. You get all the benefits of Mac desktop software (fast, easy to use, private, works with your other apps, etc.) with all the benefits of a hosted service (great deliverability, no blacklisting problems with your ISP, etc.).
Thanks again!
Jonathan Hammer
http://directmailmac.com
Coming from an email marketing industry, I just wanted to add my two cents to this topic. I think that using a desktop software like the one showed in this article is a *very bad idea*. Two reasons:
1. Poor email deliverability.
When you send an email via your own computer to many different ISPs, you may find that your email lands in a spam/junk/bulk folder often. This is due to the fact that your computer is not "whitelisted" with email providers. Many blackhat hackers infect innocent computers with their zombie virus / trojan horses that later directly deliver spam. That's why ISPs often block IP addresses of dial-ups, DSL & cable modems, and only allow email coming from "real" servers. When you use software like MaxBulk mailer, you are essentially replicating the same type of behavior as what infected computers do. If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck...
2. Getting disconnected from the Internet for spam.
That's right. When you send out any email campaign, you will get some complaints from people who will claim they didn't ask for your email. This is inevitable with every emai marketing complain. Some complaints are more serious then others, particularly the ones where the victim complaints not just to you, but to your ISP and your ISP's ISP (the "upstream complaint"). Now, your problem here is that you are sending emails from your own IP address (your own computer), and not an external mail server. What this means is that if your ISP receives a complaint against you, you may run into a rather unfunny situation where you have to prove your innocence or *risk losing your Internet connectivity*.
If you are serious about email marketing, want the best deliverability and preserve your Internet connection, you'll want to check a web-based email marketing service. One example is GetResponse: http://www.getresponse.com (for full disclosure, I am their CEO :-)
Good luck.
Hi Justin,
Nice review. How does MaxBulk Mailer stack up against other mass emailing programs? Any critical issues we should be aware of? What is the industry standard?
Thanks for any comments you can provide.
Howie - I haven't done enough in depth comparison of others to make any official comments - BUT I like that MaxBulkMailer has been around for a while, the company constantly does updates and that it is for both Mac and Windows. Also MaxBulkMailer seems to have a lot of granular options which comes in handy.
This just says to me that the company is invested in the product.
I've used MaxBulkMailer for a few years now and it has never once let me down.
As for industry standard - there isn't one for sending mail, it's more about the content. Either Plain/Styled Text or HTML. If you use HTML make sure the code is clean and correct. No one likes getting an email with pictures missing and such.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Justin - I'll give a whirl (I'm also trying out Direct Mail).
March 08 2011 at 12:34 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyRyan/Lady,
Who freaken cares? Get a hobby.
Cool it works now :) Thanks , and isn't it Mac OS 10 (roman numeral X) like 10.6.6 not Mac OS X?
March 08 2011 at 11:38 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI always said OS X (as in ex) instead of 10 - rolls off my tongue better. It can be said either way.
March 08 2011 at 11:40 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyBut didn't TUAW post an article a few months ago about how OS X (ex) is incorrect? I say it that way too and have been trying to correct myself to say OS X (10).
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