New Business Announcement Protocol

What is the proper protocol to announce a new business to several dozen companies? Would using Bcc be to impersonal? Is there a proper way to send a mass distribution so that it goes to each individual in the "To" listing without sharing the names of others who received the message?

There is no one solution to cover all those bases. If you want personalized notices, you send individual e-mails--just as you would with off-line communications. I think that sometimes folks want technology to be a one-size-fits-all based on what they are willing to do, spend or learn and it just doesn't work that way.

Did these folks give her their e-mails specifically so that she could send them such notices? Otherwise, she will be spamming them. Regardless of how important she feels her new business is, e-mailing those who did not ask for her information about a commercial venture is not the way to get a new business off the ground.

I would be more concerned about spamming than being too impersonal. Since this is a new business commercial announcement, I recommend she use a service such as VerticalResponse.com that allows you, by putting in a snippet of code such as [NAME] to add the First Name of the recipient in her notice where ever she likes.

More importantly, VR also has an unsubscribe feature at the bottom of every e-mail so those she sends to can easily get off her list if they don't want to receive future e-mails from her. The service has a pay as you go model and would be very inexpensive for only several dozen e-mails while allowing her to give the perception of the epitome of professionalism and tech savvy.

That said, services such as this have a very strong spamming policy.

No, there is no way to have each individual be in the To field unless you send each an individual e-mail or use a service as mentioned above. If you don't want to use the Bcc field you have two options:

=> Use a service like Vertical Response.
=> Create a template or stationary file in your e-mail program that you simply customize with each person's name without having to retype the entire e-mail.

HTH!