Thread: more on email management, hiring someone?

Ok so I'm in over my head again..I have, in four different email accounts, about 3000 contact names / emails that I have done business with in the past decade.

They are all in different email address books. Or paypal records. Or on ebay as part of that mailing list. I'd like to put them all together. Is it easiest to cut and paste into a new document and then manually input them into something?

I'd like to send out an email asking if the current email is still good, and if the recipient wants to remain on my email list.

Am thinking the best way to do this is hire someone to come over and do light data entry, since that is what it is right? I can have someone organize emails, send out emails asking things like do you want to stay on the list etc, also would be nice if that person can put together simple newsletters FOR me..I'd pay (gladly) for this..

What about privacy? I'd want to maintain email privacy.

possible to hire someone to do this? I don't want to just pick up some dude off craigs list..would it be better if it was someone in the community?

Ummm i suppose if you are interested you can email me at akaisilksinfo@yahoo.com and let me know what you would charge to do something like this. I gotta go rinse veils ..:)

if you are seriously considering a constant contact account, then i would just recommend using that. you may need to export or copy/paste your various accounts into a spreadsheet (excel or whatever you have) and some minor moving of columns. constant contact can check for duplicates for you, or you can maintain different lists. so, say if you only want to send an email to previous ebay customers, you can. if you haven't checked out constant contact yet, you really should watch their demos. also, $15 a month is much cheaper than paying someone to do data entry.

good luck!
em

just noticed how many emails you have... constant contact's rates are prorated by the # of emails you have. for you it would definitely be more than $15 a month! just a heads up!

I think you need to think for now and for the future. I am assuming your contacts will alway come in many different ways. you need someone to design a way of exporting and consolidating all these contacts without massive manual intervention. Sounds like a job for a programmer.

I second constant contact. The ability to unsubscribe and privacy are part of every email you send - and you do nothing. Also, it will handle the duplicates. I worked as product development manager for a competitor of constant contact so I am rather familiar with their functionality.

If you need any assistance with this, let me know. I am used to working with these types of applications. i can provide advice, tips, assistance with maintaining the list, etc.

:-)

I don't know how the rates compare at the 3000 level, or if it has all the features you'd want, but I'm using yourmailinglistprovider.com for my lists. I've got the plan that allows 500 emails a month (meaning that if you have 50 people on your list, you can send out 10 messages), which costs me $3.75/month. (They also have a free version that includes ads in the emails, FTR.)

They do NOT track whole names (just email addresses), but they do:
- let you add users to different groups (Wednesday students, podcast news, performance announcements)
- send mail to just the groups you specify
- send HTML newsletters
- they do let the recipients subscribe and unsubscribe themselves, as well as to update their own email addresses
- track bounced emails, so you can remove them
- import users by copying and pasting a big list
- keep track of who unsubscribed and when

There's a slightly more expensive plan that does more extensive reporting, too.

well i'm sticking a hand thru the avalanche..had over 700 emails since i last posted..i love constant contact and have probably put in enough time with them right now to make it worthwhile:)

i just sent out the first newsletter as a test, will see if i can figure out if there is a link and you guys can look at it if you want..