Scott said:
I'm looking for a free or low cost program to send emails to all of of my
customers at the same time, instead of one at a time.
That would be impossible. SMTP doesn't work that way. You client sends a
RCPT-TO command for each recipient in your list. This tells the SMTP
server who gets a copy of your message. The client then follows with a
DATA command that sends *one* copy of your message to the SMTP server. The
SMTP server then uses the RCPT-TO list to send a copy of that one message
to each recipient.
You can specify as many recipients in the list of RCPT-TO commands
(compiled from the values for the To, Cc, and Bcc fields in the UI for your
client) as your e-mail provider allows. If your list is longer than
allowed, you'll have to split it up. You can search for bulk mailing
programs that can give you parameters as to how many recipients are
specified per e-mail, what input list to read from for the recipients, and
how far apart to separate each e-mail send (to 1 or multiple recipients).
Since I'm not into spamming, I don't have any off-the-cuff recommendations
for bulk mailing programs but a Google search or hitting the big download
sites (CNet, Softpedia, Tucows) should turn up some possibilities.
I run a home business and am looking for a good way to keep my customers
informed via email...either with reminders or a monthly newsletter.
Why not have these users read your blog when and if they choose. Maybe
some even allow for RSS feeds so your "customers" could subscribe to them
to get notified when there is an update to your blog. You could also use
Yahoo Groups which are forums to which users join. As I recall, they can
also elect to get notified via e-mail so they would know when there was an
update in a discussion, and I believe the owner of the group can broadcast
an e-mail to all members of the group. In addition, you don't have to
maintain a mailing list. Those who join your group are electing to get
messages from it. If they don't want those messages anymore, they simply
unjoin from the group. They get a true opt-in method of deciding whether or
not they get your newsletters and immediately action to opt-out when they
unjoin, and you don't have to maintain a mailing list.
You might also want to search on "list server" (with and without the space)
to find out how to use those for your business newsletters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISTSERV