I've written stuff for clients to do exactly that. It's not complex. The problem is that you are in Manchester and I am not and (sadly) I am NOT cheap!!
It allows you to create a database of names all with different and even overlapping interests (i.e., you may be 9nterested in Fiats, I may be interested in Fiats and Lotuses, and Fred is only interested in Lotuses). It allows the user to email info about Lotuses to only the right people AND Fiats only to the right people).
However, the concept is to place the list of recipients in the 'blind carbon copy' (BCC); in that way, each recipient does NOT receive the details of each other recipient.
There are 'twists' however.
You need to discover the maximum number of emails that your ISP will allow in any one 'block'. You also need to make that 'block' easily adjustable as ISPs are reducing that number damned nigh 'weekly'! 200 used to be fine as a single block with BT, we are now down to 50! And they change the damned number without telling ANYONE! So you need to EXPECT a failure in mailshotting quiet regularly! What adds to the fun is that they allow though the first (however many) and BLOCK the rest. You will get a call saying 'I haven't received mine' and you'll send it AGIN...(and AGAIN amd AGAIN) and then you get irrate customers (who were recieving it EACH time you sent one) saying 'Why do you KEEP sending me the SAME email????"
Some software (Outlook) has an intersting trick of noticing that you are preparing a bulk email (if you do it from an excel list or a database etc.) and it will display a 'timer' (thermometer display) to ask if YOU wanted to do with or has this been generated by a virus. The way to get round THAT is to download a copy of a program called 'click yes'.... eg. here:-
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/clickyes.html
.... it does the job of saying 'Yes' for you on each email created but it removes the delay cuased by the timer!
Fourthly (and by NO means lastly), some ISPs have added ANOTHER trick. They 'count' the 'similar' emails and they add an increasing delay factor to each one. The effect is that, they may only have added 1/100th of a second between the first tow, but they will have added 0.5sec between the 10th and 11th, and then 2 seconds between the 20th and 21st , and then 10 seconds between the 100th and 101st........ and so on. That can delay your email to an unbelievable level! You need to find out if your ISP is one of those!
As I said, it's FUN!
Ian
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Multiple E-Mailing........ by 'Newshound' (22 Jan 2009 @ 10:52)
