[OPLINTECH] Advice on sending thousands of emails?

[Mann, James H.]

Phil
May I recommend MailChimp?
We have used it for more than a year to send out levy emails and now our newsletter.
It isn't free, but you can cancel after the first mailing if you don't think you will use it again.

Jim Mann
Technology Coordinator
Greene County Public Library
76 E. Market St.
Xenia Ohio 45385
(937)352-4000 x1210
mailto: jmann at gcpl.lib.oh.us
"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." - Mario Andretti.


-----Original Message-----
From: oplintech-bounces at lists.oplin.org [mailto:oplintech-bounces at lists.oplin.org] On Behalf Of Phil Shirley
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2011 2:11 PM
To: oplintech at oplin.org
Subject: [OPLINTECH] Advice on sending thousands of emails?

We want to send email to all of the roughly 16,000 patron email address 
we have, regarding our upcoming levy election. Below is how I'm thinking 
of doing it; any suggestions or comments?

I've got a file of addresses that look valid 
(something at something.something, with only text, numerals, periods, 
hyphens, underscores, plus signs, and one @ - I know there are other 
valid characters but our addresses didn't have anything else).

Actually I have 16 files, with no more than 1,000 addresses each, so I 
can do a batch of 1,000 and then give the mail server some time to catch 
up if needed.

I'm planning to create a script on our Linux mail server that takes 
addresses from one of these files and does something like

for each $address
    mail -s "this is the subject" $address < message.txt

I would create a special user account for this and run the script as 
that user, and then I would check that user's mail for bounces and replies.

Any comments or suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Phil
-- 
Phil Shirley
Technology Services Coordinator
Cuyahoga Falls Library
Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
330-928-2117, ext. 109
pshirley at CuyahogaFallsLibrary dot org

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