MustangList.com Blog

Sending your emails through an ESP like Mustang List is a good start to better deliverability, but there are a few things you can do on your own to improve your chances of getting into your customers’ inboxes.

Be Clean. First, remove bounces. Invalid email addresses and emails that just can’t make it to their mark make you look bad to the ISPs and costs you money. Mustang List automatically removes your consistent bounces for you.

Second, ask your members to Re-Opt in. We all know that you need to have explicit permission to send marketing emails. But what if you have an old list and you know that your opt-in policy was not very stringent in the past? Just because a member of your list hasn’t unsubscribed does not mean they want to hear from you. Many people can’t be bothered to unsubscribe no matter how easy it is—it’s always easier to delete an email without opening it. It sounds kind of crazy, but asking your members to opt-in again will clean your list of people who are taking up space and costing you money; it will increase your open rates; and it will help to protect you from subscribers who are more likely to hit the spam button in their email client.

Here are two ideas: You can send a dedicated email asking if your subscriber still wants to remain on the list and provide a link for them to click if they want to stay on the list. Alternatively, you can just provide a link at the top of a regular email with a notice like: “Please click here to confirm you wish to continue receiving communications from us.” Stop sending to the members who don’t re-opt in. If this sounds too aggressive to you, then segment the members who didn’t opt-in again and send to them much less frequently, being sure to include the message to opt-in again and remove any chronic non-responders.

Be recognizable. Make sure you use a “From Name” that your subscribers know. Usually this will be your company’s name. Recipients need to know who you are because most people don’t open emails where they don’t recognize the sender.

Be interesting. Your readers have an expectation as to the subject matter and offers you’ll send them in emails. Don’t stray too far off from this expectation. Why? Readers won’t use their spam buttons as often if the emails they receive are interesting and relevant

Be registered. Register, or “authenticate” your domain name with the ISPs. When you send email, ISPs check your identity (domain name) as a measure against spam. With authentication, your identity (domain name) can be verified quickly and the ISPs know you are a legitimate sender: it proves to the ISPs that you are who you say you are—and if there’s someone else out there saying they’re you, they’ll know which sender is legitimate. If your domain is not hosted with Mustang List, contact your service provider for assistance. If Mustang List hosts your domain, we’ve done this for you.

Don’t be spammy. Watch your subject lines and make sure they don’t look like spam. ALL CAPS, overuse of punctuation (!!!!), and certain terms can be red flags for spam. Free offers are good and the use of the word free won’t necessarily be a red flag, but FREE OFFER!!! is shouting spam.

A lot of people start off in email marketing by sending out newsletters, holiday greetings or other messages using Outlook. Sometimes they attach a Word Doc, or a PDF file.

Inevitably, they run into problems. Their HTML emails break when viewed by people who don’t have Outlook (users of Apple Mail, Yahoo!Mail, Gmail, Etc.).

Outlook isn’t really built for sending email newsletters to a large list of customers. Sure, you can send an HTML email to a few friends every now and then, but not to a list of any size. One of the main reasons is that Outlook sends HTML email in a way that it really only displays properly for other people using Outlook. This means all the other people who use services such as Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, etc., may not see the email properly.

In addition there are other problems such as if you send too many emails from your own computer, your ISP will think you’re a spammer, and will most likely block you. It depends on your ISP, but this can happen with sending as few as a hundred emails a day.

What about all the bounces, auto replies, requests to unsubscribe, etc., can you efficiently deal with them on a manual basis?

If you don’t remove the bounces from your list you will get blacklisted sooner or later. What about the people who click the report as spam button available on major services such as AOL, Yahoo and Hotmail? Are you setup with the ISPs to know who reports you as a spammer so you can remove them from your list so you don’t get reported repeatedly and get blocked by the ISP?

According to the CAN-SPAM law, if someone requests to be removed from your list, you must do so within 10 business days. Most people who send their emails from their desktop computers don’t have systems in place to help them automatically process unsubscribe requests. They simply ask people to “reply with unsubscribe in the subject line.” That’s prone to mistakes, and that’s prone to a CAN-SPAM lawsuit from the FTC.

Outlook and other desktop email applications don’t come with tracking tools to show you how many people opened and clicked your campaigns. How will you know how many people opened your email? Click on a link in it? Unsubscribed? Bounced?

The proper way to send emails in any volume is to use an email marketing service such as MustangList.com

Some of the benefits to using an email marketing service include:

• Automatic list management: They manage your email lists, automatically clean bounces, and instantly remove unsubscribes, so that you don’t have to manually maintain spreadsheets of subscribers and customers.
• Comply with Anti-spam laws: Email marketing services help you comply with anti-spam laws, by inserting one-click unsubscribe links, and your physical mailing address.
• Affordability: Most are extremely cost effective.
• List Privacy: They don’t just “CC:” your entire list. They send emails individually to each recipient.
• Personalization: You can merge data and personalize your messages (ex: Hello FIRST_NAME_HERE).
• Better Delivery Rates: Most professional email marketing services have established relationships with major ISPs and anti-spam organizations, to help monitor their servers, and stay off blacklists.
• Reporting and Stats for campaigns: The really cool thing about these services is they tell you how many opens and clicks your campaigns got, so you can tell if your recipients are responding.

Try MustangList.com - We make it really easy to get started - Give us a call at 847-541-2811

When you send a message if your subject line looks like subject lines commonly used in spam, your recipients can confuse your message with spam, which leads to things like filing complaints or blocking your future emails.

To improve your chances of having your messages opened and to reduce the chances ask yourself the following:

1. If you only read the subject line of your message, would it cause you to question whether the email was spam? In other words does the subject line remind you of the subject lines in spam email you have received.

2. Does your subject line tell your recipients why they are receiving the email? Does the subject line contain your name or brand?

Consider your subject line text before you send a mailing. Words like the following are red flags to many recipients:

Urgent, Free, Save, Lowest Prices, Breaking News, $$$, etc.

In addition you should avoid all caps and exclamation points.

Ideally give you list a name and use a similar subject line each time you mail that contains that name.

You want the recipient to see something recognizable in your subject line, which will help increase your open rate and lower your complaint rate.

Is your email list growing? Choosing a provider for email list hosting and management is an important strategic decision for the email marketer. Follow these guidelines to find the best provider for your needs.

Most marketers don’t have the technical facilities in-house to host their own email list. Here are some features to look for when choosing an email list-hosting provider:

1. Flexible list formats available according to your needs — announcement lists, email newsletters

2. A robust hardware and software configuration that can handle large lists and get the messages sent out quickly

3. A heavy-duty Internet connection, with plenty of bandwidth

4. A system designed specifically for email marketing — providing such features as auto-scheduled campaigns, statistics (bounces, opens, etc.) and personalized messages

5. A foolproof subscribe/unsubscribe system — so you don’t end up doing it manually

6. Automated management of bounces, duplicate addresses, and bad addresses

7. Feedback loop arrangements with major ISPs such as AOL

8. Whitelisted at major ISPs such as AOL

9. Smooth integration between the list host’s system and your in-house marketing database

10. A flexible list management arrangement — so you can manage your own lists via Web interface

11. Daily (or more often) backups, so your valuable email lists and message archives are protected

12. A strong technical support program, so any glitches get handled quickly and effectively

13. Value-added services, such as marketing consultation, editorial services and copywriting

14. Flexible pricing schemes, so it’s affordable for you to run a small list when you’re just starting out — and so the per-message cost goes down as your list size scales up

Effective list management and fast, smooth message delivery are essential components of a successful email marketing effort. Choose a reputable provider who offers a rich, flexible list hosting solution — and who has the processing power and bandwidth to scale upwards as your lists grow.

For more information about hosting your email list with MustangList.com, contact us.