emailing 6000 previous members - aweber?

just wondering if aweber would be the best way to let my previous 6000 odd members know that the site is now back. i know ti's a pay service and all i have right now is a tab delimited csv with 6000 email addresses of my previous members.

i also heard of free services that can mass email out for me. 6000 members i consider not to be too many, so i'm wondering what is the cheapest yet balanced with effective solution for this.

i also intend to find a opt in email option for my blog site. wondering if there are any recommendations besides aweber/getresponse. i heard of a few others like ibusiness / emaillabs. any thoughts on this? thanks

 

Aweber is the best. Getresponse is good too. But I see alot of marketers using Aweber.

 

does aweber allow you to import a list of email addresses? and are there any ways to get it cheaper than straight off aweber.com?

 

I'm almost positive they do... you can always contact them directly, though.

 

constantcontact and verticalresponse worked for me

 

I use custom code to send it from my server. Currently blasting to 4000+ emails daily.

 

If you really own the list and the list is not that big, you can use bulk email sending software like Atomic mail sender. It is the cheapest solution. But if you don't own the list and if somebody complains, you will lose your ISP.

 

I've heard many rumours that sending emails yourself will get you banned in an instant.

I collected my list myself, and I comply with all the anti-spam laws. Am I not allowed to send out emails myself? Do I *have* to pay someone else?

I've been sending them myself, since I believe that it's my list and my hosting account.

 

ok an update. i joined aweber. it probably IS the best but at a cost. the tracking functions are the best, and the implementations you can add.

it also allows you to import email lists BUT IT MUST BE OPT IN. Ohterwise YES your account can get banned.

So far the conversion rate is a bit low for me (of about 6000 emails only 1000 signups but alot of them haven't actually opened the link)

 

I used to mail myself and that got me blacklisted quick with Yahoo, MSN and Gmail.

I hired a consultant and he said I had a recently registered domain name, my domain was only registered for a year, i was using too much graphics and html when mailing....all these things contributed to a terrible mailing campaign...I am now using vertical response and my open rate has gone through the roof.

 

You actually can ask aweber to turn off the double optin and then you can add names to a webform but it is only supposed to be 10 or so a day. If you did have an older list say of around 100 people you could add them yourself within a week without them having to confirm. If you use the import form, they do have to confirm.

Deb