I'd like to know some good practices for handling bad addresses returned from distribution lists. My esp limits me to 100 addresses per email (used to be 40). I've split up my email newsletter recipients into about 40 different distribution lists. Each time I send out a newsletter I get some undeliverable mail returned because of bad addresses. I'd like to have a fairly easy way of managing them. I need to:
- harvest the addresses from the returned emails (I set up a few Word macros to do this from saved-to-single-file emails. The search string is different for each esp).
- decide whether to find a new email address for the recipient (via Linked In, FB, a mutual friend, a website) and replace the old one. Or, just remove the recipient from the distribution list and the address book (and my Palm Desktop)
This involves finding which distribution list (or lists) the recipient is on. I know I can search in individual lists in Pegasus. Is there any way to search through all distribution lists? I could use Notepad++ to search.
I have set up the distribution lists using aliases and divided them up thematically and alphabetically (for the large themes). Reading through the posts here it seems that a good practice is to use only the email addresses. Is there a way to convert aliases to addresses in a distribution list? In converting to email addresses I potentially lose my alphabetization organization (unless I put them all in "Fname Lname" <email@address> form). If I can search through all distribution lists then that won't be a problem.
I understand that I could use Mercury and do a mail merge. Would this be more problematic in terms of my esp limitations on the rate of sending emails? I'd love to hear some good practices for managing distribution lists from some more experienced users. Thanks for all your help.