Setting up Mailing List through Email

[UK2004]

Hi All,

Want to set up a mailing list whereby peopel who request ot be on it get periodic emails detailing new products, special offers etc etc.

Anyone know if this can be done in Outlook?

Cheers.

[Rob]

You can do it through Outlet but a manual process.

1) Start a group mailing list in O/Look

2) Publicise your service and ask people to send a blank e-mail with 'Join Mailing List' in the header

3) Manually add their address to your group

4) You can then mail your list whenever you want

This is an easy way to start off a mailing list / newsletter and is how I started but there are a few problems:

1) It's all manual - additions and removals

2) You can't pre-programme your mailings to go on a set date; you have to do it yourself

3) Some ISP's will treat mailings in this way as potential spam and so limited each bulk mail to say 100 mails. To get around this you would have to set up another Group and do two separate mailings

As I sais its an easy and cost effective way of starting off but once you get scale it becomes very time consuming and then you need to progress to more automated services such as provided by www.aweber.com

Hope this helps

[Rob Holmes]

Hi All,

Want to set up a mailing list whereby peopel who request ot be on it get periodic emails detailing new products, special offers etc etc.

Anyone know if this can be done in Outlook?

Cheers.

We offer a newsletter and followup system that does this.

See The Autoresponder (http://www.the-autoresponder.co.uk) - or you (or anyone else) can sign up for a free trial autoresponder (http://www.the-autoresponder.co.uk/email-trial.html) account

Hope this helps,

Rob

[UK2004]

Many thanks for that, is done.

[autolycus]

Another nice thing about most of these automated systems is that you can set them to do "double opt-in".

This means when someone signs up for your newsletter via your website, they autmoatically get an email asking them to click a link to confirm their subscription. Only then are they added to your mailing list.

This helps lessen the risk of you spamming people because it gets round the issue of people going on to your site and just adding loads of email addresses that don't belong to other people.

[caroline]

I do a mailing list too, and just wanted to say its worth doing. Mine always generate sales. I use:

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/hub.mspx

BCentral they are called, although you have to pay for the service.

[Rob Holmes]

Another nice thing about most of these automated systems is that you can set them to do "double opt-in".

This means when someone signs up for your newsletter via your website, they autmoatically get an email asking them to click a link to confirm their subscription. Only then are they added to your mailing list.

This helps lessen the risk of you spamming people because it gets round the issue of people going on to your site and just adding loads of email addresses that don't belong to other people.

Very true David,

It's important thay you can provide an opt-in IP and datestamp in the event of being accused of spamming.

Rob

[UK2004]

Is it not ok to just ask them to email asking to be put on your mailing list then manually add them to the Outlook one or can that be legally contentious?

[autolycus]

Is it not ok to just ask them to email asking to be put on your mailing list then manually add them to the Outlook one or can that be legally contentious?

I guess you could, so long as you kept the incoming emails as proof that they had asked to be on the list.

But it's more work for you though, as you have to manually maintain the list. Also, as was said above, if the list gets too big, you may have to start splitting it down into groups of 100 or so.

A lot of hosting packages come with free mailing list software included - for example phpList.

[ink4-u]

just install a simple php mailing doublt opt in script. its not that hard and you can get some great scripts for free. that come with an admin section. the times i have said this to people.