Is It OK To Use Your Mac To Send Mass Email?

I get a lot of email each day and most of it is spam, junk email, a digital plague of sorts. Most Mac users have spam filters; junk email systems to trap and discard unwanted email.

So, how do you feel about a Mac application which lets Mac users join the world of mass emailers? Actually, mass email has a place in Mac life, but it’s not a soft spot in my heart.

As a diligent citizen of the digital world, I get my share of email, and send a similar share out. My Mac manages it all with grace, dignity and efficiency.

I can safely say that the 2008 political season may have resulted in more mass email messages than any year in history.

In the US, both major parties conducted mass mailings, tens of millions more messages than the famed and hated robo calls on the phone. Did you get a political email? How many compared to the number of robo calls?

While I was cleaning out my inbox—both legitimate spam, legitimate email, and politically related email (a class by itself)—it struck me that somebody out that has a very sophisticated email messaging system capable of managing, sorting, sending millions of messages.

Frankly, I’m glad I’m not in that league though it seems I’m not far behind with all the email I’m required to delete each day. Are there Mac users who actually have a legitimate purpose, a reason to send out mass email messages?

What Mac application would they use? I asked around and more than one marketer in the know pointed me to Mac Mass Mailer. As you might suspect, it’s a mass emailer for the Mac. I decided to check it out.

The keys to any successful mass email campaign falls into a few distinct categories of importance. Obtaining, securing a qualified list of current email addresses. Sorting through the email addresses and selecting the appropriate ones for a message.

Then, managing the email address list so you know which email address received which message and when.

It’s easy when you have a few dozen email addresses and a few simple messages from time to time. OS X’s built in Mail will do the trick. Multiply that need times thousands or tens of thousands and you need a Mac mass emailer like Mac Mass Mailer.

It’s all in the database. Sift and sort email addresses for different requirements and differing messages. The template message can be fully customized; fonts, photos, images, attachments, even HTML.

An emailing list, regardless of where the emails came from, can store templates and a variety of messages. Mac Mass Mailer produces a unique document file for each email list you need, and can hold multiple recipient groups.

That means that managing multiple email campaigns to many different email address lists is a few simple steps on your Mac.

Though Mac Mass Mailer is a separate application from Mail, and it uses its own database to store templates, messages, and email addresses, it uses Apple’s Mail framework to send the messages from your Mac.

The same email message can be sent to many tens of thousands of recipients, yet, with the right information such as first name and last name, each email message appears to be customized.

How about getting the email addresses and names into Mac Mass Mailer in the first place? Easy. Mostly. MMM imports information using CSV or tab-delimited data formats, so you can add information from custom database, Excel spreadsheets, or other lists.

Mac Mass Mailer even extracts email addresses from files and folders, which helps to gather addresses from HTML pages, or document lists.

All this mass emailing capability seems to result in a few questions. Is it legal? Yes, if the email addresses have opted in, or signed up specifically to receive messages. Is it expensive? Yes and now.

Mac Mass Mailer for a single user is a modest $69, though a site license can cost well over $1,000. The MMM user interface is wholly Mac-like, with a standard tool bar across the top which may be the single most self-explanatory tool bar I’ve ever seen.

To the left, in a separate column from the email address and name details is Groups, Messages, and the custom Fields needed to create the templates. The search function is a simple click, as is import and export.

Do you have a need for a Mac mass emailer? How do you feel about receiving email messages that you know are mass generated, yet not spam? Mac users have a few choices for sending mass email, and Mac Mass Mailer is more than decent.