I don't make any commission from this, so let's get that out of the way. But I've been asked before to recommend a good "email blast" service - a service you can use to send out emails to customers and prospects.
For really heavy-duty applications, my friends over at Listrak are top-notch. For the rest of us, Constant Contact is a great choice. It's super-easy to manage. You can upload an Excel file or even an Outlook Address book to their web site and instantly create a list; add a sign-on form to your Web site; use one of their templates or create your own customized message format; schedule mailings; and then track all your activity. How many people opened your email? How many used the "forward to a friend" feature? Cost depends on how many subscribers you'll have. It's very reasonable.
The alternative to using a service such as Constant Contact - adding 20, 50, 100 or more emails to a single email message in Outlook and hitting "send" - is fraught with peril. There are many reasons you should not do this, including the risk of sending all your clients and prospects a virus; the risk that your email craps out halfway through and now you don't know where it cut off, and the lack of privacy for your readers. Oh, and if one of your email recipients has a virus that inspects his or her inbox for email addresses to harvest, and it finds this nice email from you with 200 recipients...well, it could get ugly.
And they've got a free version that gives you up to 50 members.
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