Solicited sales email distribution - advice needed

[Bill Davidsen]

Gary Stainburn wrote:
> Hi Folks.
>
> I have at work one of our salesmen who has an opt-in stock-list distribution
> that has been running for some time now. He has in excess of 2500 recipients
> on this list.
>
> Up until now he has simply had a Distribution list in his MS Outlook which he
> maintains himself. He then sends himself an email every week containing the
> stock list and BCC's the distribution list.  Other than generating an
> excessive load on my EXIM server there has been no  real down side to this as
> it meant that I didn't have to get involved.
>
> However, we are now experiencing problems and I would like a better solution.
>
> I need a system that will distribute the email to each recipient as a seperate
> message, and if possible will monitor and highlight any emails that fail.
>
> Can anyone suggest a way of doing this? Ideally I would like the salesman to
> still be able to administer it but that isn't essential. If it is a system
> that is either text file or database driven  I can create a UI that he would
> be able to use.
>
I did a perl script, reads all of the addresses from a list, the mail text from 
another, command line options to control the number of recipients per connect 
(sounds like you want one) and time between connects. Also copes with the fact 
that the master list gets updated by someone else, so I have a file of addresses 
to rewrite to something working and one of addresses to just drop, even though 
they're in the master list. Set the From header to a unique value so you can 
isolate the bounces, or use a unique string in the subject, I tried "Bounces-To" 
and found little sites use dumb mail programs which use from even if sender or 
bounces-to are present.

Enjoy.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot