| Dear
Todd:
You can thank the spammers for this one. The volume of spam has grown
so rapidly that most organizations that deliver e-mail have put into place
draconian e-mail filters to cut down the deluge of unwanted mail.
Unfortunately, these also catch and stop a lot of e-mail that was supposed to go
through as well.
It's Not Who You Are, It's Where You Come From...
This has become a very serious problem especially for Web-based e-mail
marketing services. These are companies that will manage your e-mail
database and send out your messages from their servers. This is a very
easy and typically inexpensive way to do outbound e-mail marketing including
sophisticated e-mail drip marketing campaigns. In fact, I use just such a
service to manage my very large
mrinternet NEWS newsletter subscriber base.
However, these services make it easy and inexpensive for anyone to
use, including spammers. And all it takes is just one spammer to ruin the
service for everyone else! Reputable Web-based e-mail marketing services
will try very hard to screen out the abusers, but that is a losing battle.
Once a spammer starts sending out unsolicited e-mails using their system, it
causes the major spam filtering systems to ban all e-mail coming from the
service �including yours and everyone else's. And there is not much the
Web-based e-mail service provider can do about it. When this happens, you
will suddenly find that you lost the ability to contact many of your recipients
via e-mail through the Web-based system you are using. This is exactly
what has happened to me with my
mrinternet NEWS newsletter subscriber base. However, there are ways to
mitigate this so that your e-mail gets through, no matter what.
Neither Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Spam...
The single quickest fix is to change where your e-mail comes from (i.e. the
server used to send your mass e-mail). If your list is relatively small
(i.e. under 1000 names), then you can use a very easy and inexpensive software
solution called
World Merge to send your messages out including personalizing each one
through its data-merge capabilities. You would set it up to send the
messages through the same server your personal e-mail software uses.
Unless you have previously sent spam, the spam filters will not likely tag your
messages.
For larger lists (i.e. 1000's of names), you may want to consider getting a
dedicated (i.e. no one else can use it) e-mail server through an ISP and have it
set up so it has its own IP address and domain name. You will also need
to use e-mail marketing software that has quite a bit more horsmrinternet in terms
of setting up various campaigns, handling bounce-backs, bad addresses, opt-in
and opt-out requests etc. I personally am exploring the use of
Campaign Enterprise from Arial Software for all my e-mail marketing needs.
This is not for the fainthearted however, as it is not cheap and takes a bit
of time and programming to incorporate seamlessly into your e-mail marketing
procedures (look for future article on this once I have had a chance to
thoroughly test it.) If you do decide to take this route, be sure to hire
a pro to help you set it up. You can ask the company who they would
recommend or find a Virtual Consultant on
Elance.com.
In addition to changing the server from which your e-mail marketing messages originate,
here are some other tips to help make sure your important messages get through:
- Spread The Sending Period - if many of your recipients belong to
the same company, be sure you spread your sending periods out over several
days because some organizations will automatically ban your messages if too
many come in from the same source at the same time.
- Be Smart About When You Send It - avoid evenings or early morning
sendings (especially Sunday) since this is when many spammers send their junk.
Also, your messages are not as likely to be thrown out if sent during normal
business hours.
- Avoid "Spam Language" - there are too many words and phrases here
(and the list changes all the time) that could trigger spam filters to block
your messages. The best approach here is to check your messages before
they get sent out and make adjustments accordingly. One inexpensive
software-based solution is called
FilterBuster.
If this seems like a lot of work for just sending something as simple as an
e-mail �it is, and you can thank the spammers of the world for nearly ruining
e-mail as a viable business tool. Of course you can always do what I do and just
have your Virtual Assistant handle all this stuff for you!
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Article
Resources: |
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World Merge - an easy to use and inexpensive mass e-mail marketing program
for sending personalized messages to lists that are a few hundred names in size. |
Campaign Enterprise - a highly sophisticated e-mail marketing software
program that can access most databases. Installation requires the use of
an experienced IT person.
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Elance.com - where you can find Virtual Consultants to help you set up your
own e-mail marketing software systems. |
FilterBuster - an inexpensive software program that purports to check your
e-mail messages for things that may trigger e-mail spam filters to stop delivery
of your messages. |
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