I am in mailing list hell.
Let me apologize, first of all, for the recent disruptions in the formerly smooth operation of Subscription Services as well as Newsletter Delivery Systems for Chiff & Fipple. I have spoken to my lawyers who have suggested I use the following language regarding exactly where the responsibility lies for this debacle.
“Dale Wisely has totally screwed this up.”
Let me say, also, that I approved this message.
There is a long and ridiculous story about how this has all happened. Has to do with changes I’ve made in my computer. Efforts I’ve made to respond to problems with yahoogroups, real and imagined. Medications I have taken and, yes, failed to take. Here’s a greatly abbreviated version.
Almost 3 years ago, yahoogroups made some changes in their privacy policy. They aren’t terribly unusual changes, but they were handled rather clumsily and they ended up changing subscriber’s privacy settings, and then providing subscribers with the option to change them back. This irritated some people. So, I began keeping a private list and would send newsletters both to yahoogroups and to newer subscribers, who were mostly on the lists I maintained myself. I developed a system for maintaining those. It worked ok.
However, due to some software problems and other issues regarding my time, I have not been able to find an adequate software/hardware system to allow me to continue to manage the subscriber list as I have in the past.
In addition, my privately-sent list is increasingly being dealt with as SPAM at various levels along the path. Sometimes at my outgoing level and sometimes on your incoming level. When you are sending out 3400 identical emails, it looks like you are really inviting people to, I don’t know, refinance their penises or something.
The long and short is that I have inadvertently reversed myself on this in the last couple of weeks more quickly than your average candidate for public office. Mistakes were made. I feel your pain. You deserve better. I blame myself. I didn’t inhale.
I need help. I am hoping someone will have some suggestions. Here’s what I need to make the c&f mass-emailings work.
I need…
- to be able to import 3400 email addresses into whatever new system I use.
-I need people to be able to unsubscribe by email.
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I need new subscribers to be able to subscribe by email.
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I need for new subscriptions and un-subs to be acknowledged automoatically.
Then, I need…
-Some system for sending out identical email messages (a newsletter) to 3000-4000 subscribers. After years of steady and inexplicable growth, subscriptions have finally stabilized at about 3300-3400 email addresses. At any given time, though, 100-200 of these seem to be invalid.
-ideally, a system that will deal with invalid email addresses and bounces and so on.
-It would be nice if we could figure out away around this tendency for the newsletters to get interpreted as spam.
I have tried several email clients. Outlook 2003, Courier, Eudora. All have encountered various problems.
A lot of people have had suggestions, but they tend to come from people who have hypothetical solutions that are untested or with which they are not even that familiar. And, of course, there’s the “get a Mac” thing.
I confess to being nostalgic for yahoogroups. But lots of people refuse to use it as subscribers.
The newsletter I sent out this a.m. went out to about half of the list. I still can’t figure out what happened or even who did and didn’t get it. Too bad because it was brilliant, even though I didn’t talk about myself enough.
If anyone has experience in this area or can help me do the research, I’d be very grateful. And, if someone with a lot of experience and expertise wants to take it over, I’ll pass on to you both the salary I’ve been making AND my eternal gratitude.
Thanks.
Dale
