Many companies do regular mailings to customers: newsletters, special promotions, that sort of thing. While some still use postal mail, most now use email as the most convenient and least expensive medium.
Unfortunately, few make use of real mailing list programs. Instead, it's typical to find someone maintaining a large list of email addresses in a Word document and using cut and paste to address a mailing. Often the list is too large to do even that with one message, so there may be multiple smaller blocks maintained. Obviously this is not the right way to do it.
Even if you don't need the full features of a mailing list, you still shouldn't do it that way. See Kerio Connect Webmail Distribution lists (Contact Groups) instead.
Sometimes things are a little better: the groups are defined inside an Outlook distribution list. That's an improvement over a Word cut and paste setup, but it still doesn't have the features of a real program designed to handle mass mailings.
What are the advantages of a true Mailing List program such as is provided with Kerio Mail Server? There are several:
If you want to modify more of the default messages than just those the administration interface allows, see the "mlist-" files in (install-dir)/kerio/mailserver/reports/en directory. Keep in mind that changes made there will be overwritten by upgrades.
A mailing list is also very useful for internal communications. It's one way to have an "everyone" group that cannot be spammed by outsiders, too.
Setting up a mailing list in Kerio Mail Server is very easy. Simply add a list (the name you use will become an email address) in Domains->Mailing Lists. Define your policies, and be sure to create a moderator. If users will be subscribing themselves, you will want to send out one last mailing the old way, telling people how to subscribe. If this is a public mail list, you can post the subscribe address on your website. The subscribe address will be the list name plus "-subscribe" at your domain. So, if you are xyz.com and you name your list "saleslist", it will be "saleslist-subscribe@xyz.com".
People with AOL addresses tend to be less technically savvy as a group.. but they do love to hit that "Spam" button. This can cause AOL to reject your email outright.
If you have that issue, this can help: AOL Postmaster Feedback Loop Information.
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More Articles by Tony Lawrence © 2012-09-12 Tony Lawrence
Any teacher that can be replaced with a computer, deserves to be (David Thornburg)
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Kerio Mail Server Mailing Lists Copyright © October 2004 Tony Lawrence
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