Email Account & Marketing Email Functionality

[campbdy]

Hi,

I have a new website, which is provided for me by a third party. However the only email account I can get with them is webmail, which I dislike. It also does not meet my requirements.

I am looking for:

- an email account with the following features, or
- an email account and software that is compatible with the email account

that can accomplish the following:

· I want my own business email account, e.g. mail [ at ] mycompanyname [ . ] com - which should have all the normal mailbox functionality: inbox, sent, draft etc.

· I want to be able to send mass marketing/newsletter emails. Marketing emails need to be easily configurable - to add images, change font etc. I need to be able to send to up to 50,000 people.

· I also need to be able to track the 'hits' for marketing emails opened.

I would welcome any suggestions on the options available.

Thanks
Diane

[Dibs_h]

Hi,

I have a new website, which is provided for me by a third party. However the only email account I can get with them is webmail, which I dislike. It also does not meet my requirements.

I am looking for:

- an email account with the following features, or
- an email account and software that is compatible with the email account

that can accomplish the following:

· I want my own business email account, e.g. mail [ at ] mycompanyname [ . ] com - which should have all the normal mailbox functionality: inbox, sent, draft etc.

· I want to be able to send mass marketing/newsletter emails. Marketing emails need to be easily configurable - to add images, change font etc. I need to be able to send to up to 50,000 people.

· I also need to be able to track the 'hits' for marketing emails opened.

I would welcome any suggestions on the options available.

Thanks
Diane

Diane

Assuming the domain is yours - there is nothing stopping you from separating the email from the www. It just requires a change in the DNS entry. But before you do that - you need to arrange for the mail hosting.

Now any web hosting package would be suitable - the www side of it you won't use, only the mail side of it.

The things you need to look out for (or need) is POP 3 access for inbound emails and SMTP(auth) for outbound. It is possible the host offers IMAP - without giving you techno-babble, it would achieve the same net result.

This would allow you to use Outlook\Express - thereby giving you the Sent Items, Inbox, etc you spoke of. There shouldn't be any issue with the nbr of emails you send out.

The issue of sending that many - from a mailing list, etc. would most likely require a specialist program and tracking the hits would require something else. I'm no specialist on this latter part - some of the programs I've seen send out emails with HTML links for tracking\etc. These may require some sort of web page\s to facilitate this.

The hosting package chosen could also do this as there is www capability - even tho you may not be using it to host a "site".

Hope it helps.

Dibs

[paulhalsey]

for the volume sending and tracking of easily customised emails, I would recommend www.emailshot.co.uk (http://www.emailshot.co.uk) They don't tie you you into any long term contracts, it's more modelled on a "pay as you send" system.