What do you use to send bulk email?

Alvin,

Before anyone could really recommend a solution, they would need to know if you are sending to your own internal customer database or to a purchased third party prospecting list? You would also want to ask any solution you come across about their terms/policy on sending out to 3rd party lists.
Solutions like Constant Contact are great for sending emails to your customers, however they forbid you to send to a prospect list and they will terminate your account if you violate their terms of use.
There are several good prospecting solutions out there as well that are similar to Constant Contact in terms of being white listed and getting mail through to the users Inbox.
I would certainly not recommend a mass email solution, 90% of your emails will go to junk or spam folder and will never get seen. It also forces you to purchase old, stale data just to be able to afford to send off hundreds of thousand or millions of records that are needed from a mass server just to get a handful or two of responses.

Pete LaBella
pete@dwausa.com

If you do have your own opt-in list I can highly recommend Dundee Internet which hosts some of the major email lists out there (like the Microsoft Developer Network).

http://mailing-list-services.com/

Tell Pat or Rick Roundtree that Richard sent you! :-)

Ian Wellins

I used a great company called Pacific East. Here is a contact name for you. Using them we were able to send out 3,000 emails. I'll let them explain their process to you. It does involve a "clearing" step in which they send out an email to the list asking if they can follow up with a memo from your company. If they don't get a response within 4 days, they consider that a yes. They stated that they typically get 10% fall out. That was exactly what I experienced from my first list. Using this request approach, they are able to meet the requirements of anti-spamming laws.

Pacific East Contact: Bette Lou Kliewer [BKliewer@pacificeast.com] 360.988.0421

Constant Contact also provides excellent bulk email services.

Good Luck,

Ian

We are definitely going to be sending emails to our internal database, but we haven't cut out the idea of emailing 3rd party lists as well. It's still in the mixer for now. Thank you for providing me with valuable information. I will be sure to check out your provided players.

Alvin -

Sending bulk email to your opt-in lists is perfectly acceptable. Depending on your commitment you may consider differences between hosted and on-premise email service provider solutions. Hosted solutions are generally faster to launch and ramp. More importantly there are fewer technical or engineering considerations.

There are a number of providers that you should consider, including Silverpop, Strongmail, ConstantContact, Lyris, iContact, BrontoMail, WhatCounts, VerticalResponse, and Responsys. This is a short list so you certainly can find more.

Here are some links to resources to help you:
www.marketingprofs.com/bg/
www.emailexperience.org/
www.email-marketing-reports.com/services.htm

Before moving forward you probably want to consider your legal obligations. Regardless of how you send there are legal implications to sending email. Here is the FTC's summary of the CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business, see:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm

Hope this helps and good luck -

Howie

Be wary of sponsored information, and buying systems for functionality that you don't need. Think about the sort of marketing you are going to be doing and then find a tool that does it. This is useful:
http://econsultancy.com/blog/2096-choosing-an-email-service-provider

And I have to admit we have a report out ourselves soon:
http://mayfieldsolutions.co.uk/emailmarketingreport.aspx
Good luck. Kate

I am using email-m.com - a saas web based email marketing service provider.
http://www.email-m.com

Alvin:

I would agree with Justin on the "bulk" email. You will find that you will get a much better return and develop a better engagement level with your buyers if you take the time to segment your database and send them relevant information that addresses their current needs and challenges.

Developing a content map that will map your content to the various levels of the buying cycle and to the customer segment takes time and discipline but the pay-off will far exceed that of a batch and blast approach.

Carlos Hidalgo
The Annuitas Group