We are dumb - Which email sending service should we use?

[TelegramSam]

Hi,

I have been running a website for a number of years and have just relied on seo.

The business is mainly offline but we have had quite a lot of business through the website.

In the last few years, we have collected about 4,300 email addresses from paying customers but have never sent them a regular newsletter etc.

Yes I know, WE ARE DUMB...

We now want to do a monthly newsletter to keep in touch with our clients.

By the way, we did mention that they would be subscribed to the newsletter when they buy, so they are expecting a newsletter, it's just that we havn't gotten round to it.

Anyway, my question is what email sending service should we use?

Our list is not double opt in.

Is there software we could put on our PC's to send a newsletter out or do we use some kind of hosted service.

I know about aweber and getreponse, but I think they require double opt in, I may be wrong.

My research has also thrown up a service called Topica.

Can anyone suggest what we could do, so that we can start sending out a monthly email/newsletter with no fuss.

Many thanks.

[OmarNegron]

Hey.

I would stick with Aweber. They are the best in my opinion and are very helpful when you decide to give them a call. Also, I tried get response and didnt have that much success with it. It was hard to navigate for me.

With aweber you have the choice for double opt ins or not, but if you are manually entering there name and email into your database they will have to click a confirm link no matter what...

Hope this helps!

[TelegramSam]

Hi,

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying.

I have a list of customers' emails totalling about 4,300 people.

With aweber, would I be able to just import them and then send out an email newsletter to the full list?

I'm not sure how many would then double opt in as they may have bought from us many months ago etc...

It's not the same as signing up for something now and double opting in straight away etc...

I hope I make sense.

Thanks.

[jacktackett]

TelegramSam, check out iContact, while about the same price as aweber for the number of accounts you have, they will work with you on importing the list. As long as you do not receive an inordinate amount of spam complaints you will be ok - and not have to go through the pain of double-opt in.
Good luck,
--Jack

[Brad Callen]

I'd go with getresponse.com. Aweber's interface is nicer, but email delays are a big problem with them.

Brad

[-Jericho-]

I like getresponse but the only annoying thing is if you upload a new list you have to have all of them optin.

[PLRwithAlex]

I prefer Aweber. For less than $20 per month you can have unlimited autoresponders.

This means any number for you and you can charge clients to access and maintain their autoresponders. I've used them for years and you can't beat their support.

Also, the newer interface helps with setup and maintaining your lists.

A

[a2zwebs]

I also use aweber and they are pretty good and you don't have to choose double opt in, however you run the risk obviously of having more compaints.

[Dennis Gaskill]

For a list that size aweber would cost $49 a month, with the next price $69 a month for 5,000 subscribers. My list would cost me $149 a month if I wasn't still getting the old pricing. It looks like the same list would be $17.95 a month with Get Response.

...in case pricing is a consideration. I'm thinking of changing to Get Response. Anyone use them?

You probably don't want to send that many emails from your desktop. If you direct send you'll have a ton of undeliverables. If you go through your ISP...well, let's just say you'd better check first.

[Dennis Gaskill]

Another thing about not using double opt-in...when you send mass mail some of the big national ISPs insist they be double opt-in. If they aren't confirmed double opt-in, they'll refuse delivery. After a few bounces, the subscribers get purged from your mailing list.

I lost a ton of subscribers because of that. At least that's the way it was explained to me when I lost thousands of subscribers in one month a couple years ago.

[Steadyon]

I think you should stay clear of Topica. I have used them for years. Once you get used to their interface it is quite good, but I was never happy with their deliverability.

[TelegramSam]

Many thanks everyone for the responses so far. Much appreciated.

A key factor in which service to use is deliverability.

All of these addresses are from genuine customers of ours.

However, no one knows that apart from us and our customers.

I have a number of questions and hopefully there are some wise folks here who can help further:

1) What is the best service to use to get the emails into their inboxes?

(We know about not using certain words in the email etc). However, I understand that no matter waht you put into your email, some isp's will still not deliver 100% into inboxes.

2) How does an isp know if an email address is single opt in or double opt in?

3) Is there any geographic preference in getting emails delivered by getresponse and aweber?

(Our email addresses are split roughly 50/50 between the USA and Europe.)

4) Why is there less chance of getting emails delivered into inboxes if we send them from our desktop machines?

5) Is there anything our company can do to get isp's (msn, aol, gmail, hotmail etc...) to know that we don't send spam and our customers want our newsletter?

I know there are a lot of questions, but we are very new to sending out emails.

Many thanks in advance.

Sam

[AndyBlackSEO]

I'm creating my own so I hope I don't shoot myself in the foot by doing so (in the long run).

One thing I would say is, if you have sent a newsletter in all this time I would remind them of this fact rather than just promoting. ie - Let them know that they have bought from you previously and subscribed but as a company you now have some great things coming up and therefore wanted to activate your newsletter so you can pass that value on to your existing customer base. Then send a regular newsltter. I wouldsend an email fortnightly. The first one as a pre-sell telling them of the kind of offers that are coming there way and that you are just finishing off the final touches on these great deals... and then two weeks later hit them with the offers.

Just an idea.

[Diver's]

Hi Sam.

i would suggest Mailloop for you, you have an already big number of customer. Mailloop handles unlimited and you just pay one time. not monthly. I beleive it will serve you well. Here is a review of Mailloop.

Hope this helps.

[Traffic-Bug]

If you want cheapest, go for sendn.com but you will have to build the list throughthem, meaning subscriber emails have to subscribe through the system and opt-in, that is protection against being blocked as spam.

[TelegramSam]

As well as the questions above, what are the benefits/disadvantages of having your own software such as AutoResponsePlus and MailLoop versus the monthly subscription services such as aweber and getresponse?

[Steadyon]

Originally Posted by TelegramSam

Many thanks everyone for the responses so far. Much appreciated.

A key factor in which service to use is deliverability.

All of these addresses are from genuine customers of ours.

However, no one knows that apart from us and our customers.

I have a number of questions and hopefully there are some wise folks here who can help further:

1) What is the best service to use to get the emails into their inboxes?

(We know about not using certain words in the email etc). However, I understand that no matter waht you put into your email, some isp's will still not deliver 100% into inboxes.

2) How does an isp know if an email address is single opt in or double opt in?

3) Is there any geographic preference in getting emails delivered by getresponse and aweber?

(Our email addresses are split roughly 50/50 between the USA and Europe.)

4) Why is there less chance of getting emails delivered into inboxes if we send them from our desktop machines?

5) Is there anything our company can do to get isp's (msn, aol, gmail, hotmail etc...) to know that we don't send spam and our customers want our newsletter?

I know there are a lot of questions, but we are very new to sending out emails.

Many thanks in advance.

Sam

Originally Posted by TelegramSam

As well as the questions above, what are the benefits/disadvantages of having your own software such as AutoResponsePlus and MailLoop versus the monthly subscription services such as aweber and getresponse?

Wow, I'd love to know some of these answers too. Perhaps some of the email marketing experts on this site can help us both out. I hope so...

Can anyone shed light on these questions?

[Jeff Henshaw]

The business is mainly offline but we have had quite a lot of business through the website.

In the last few years, we have collected about 4,300 email addresses from paying customers but have never sent them a regular newsletter etc.

Yes I know, WE ARE DUMB...

We now want to do a monthly newsletter to keep in touch with our clients.

By the way, we did mention that they would be subscribed to the newsletter when they buy, so they are expecting a newsletter, it's just that we havn't gotten round to it.

Anyway, my question is what email sending service should we use?

Our list is not double opt in.

Your list does not have to be double opt in. It is a customer list and provided you have indicated to your customers that they will be contacted by you from time to time - for whatever reason, then they can't accuse you of sending them spam, provided that you have a clear and easy unsubscribe process.

I won't go into the pros and cons of individual service providers or the pros and cons of installing your own email script.

Your problem is that if you have not been in fairly regular contact with your customers (and former customers), what is going to be thier reaction (especially of that of your earlier customers), to getting an email from you now?

I would suggest contacting your ISP, explaining the situation and after agreement, contact your entire list, using an easy to use bulk emailer (approved by your ISP).

Explain to your list that as a valuable customers/former customers, you are introducing your newsletter (with all of the benifits to them) and would they like to receive it, or not (give them a quick link to send a 'Do not want to Receive' email). Then keep sending to the others.

Alternatively, do exactly as above, but ask them to actively subscribe (offer a bribe, such as a discount coupon or something). You can then use an alternative service autoresponders (with double opt in if you wish), such as Aweber, GetResponse or EmailAces.

Just my thoughts,

Regards,
Jeff.

[jacktackett]

Originally Posted by TelegramSam

...
I have a number of questions and hopefully there are some wise folks here who can help further:

1) What is the best service to use to get the emails into their inboxes?

(We know about not using certain words in the email etc). However, I understand that no matter waht you put into your email, some isp's will still not deliver 100% into inboxes.

All service providers will say they're the best. Most of the top line folks spend a lot of time and money ensuring the highest deliverability rate possible, but it can never be 100% given the nature of email. Any provider claiming that is just outright lying, or has so many conditions on it to be laughable.

Most also provide a form of Spam Assassin to help you score your email to see if others will mark it as spam. There really is nothing you can do to ensure 100% deliverability.

2) How does an isp know if an email address is single opt in or double opt in?

To my knowledge they can't. But they can definitely react to a large number of complaints.

3) Is there any geographic preference in getting emails delivered by getresponse and aweber?

(Our email addresses are split roughly 50/50 between the USA and Europe.)

I have no idea here.

4) Why is there less chance of getting emails delivered into inboxes if we send them from our desktop machines?

Several reasons - first many isps block sending emails from your desktop - so if you had a program on your desktop that sent emails directly they would never get through. Note - when you use Outlook or thunderbird or any other email client you are not sending the email from your computer - your program sends the email to a mail server (MTA) that then sends it on toward the final delivery address.

Earthlink use to do this as do others.

Other ISPs - like GoDaddy, limit the number of emails you can send per day (their smallest account starts off at 250/day). If you want to send more, you have to pay more. Some also throttle the number of emails you can send per hour - so if you have a large number of emails to send it could litterally take days to get them out.

Finally, ISPs are allocated IP addresses in various blocks. Its pretty simple to figure out if the IPs are meant for endusers or servers - not easy but doable. Some hosts take this into account when accepting email streams.

5) Is there anything our company can do to get isp's (msn, aol, gmail, hotmail etc...) to know that we don't send spam and our customers want our newsletter?

You can talk to them like the other providers do, but while they're the big players - they are not the only ones. I personally know folks at iContact and Brontomail - two local email service providers here in RTP - they maintain teams of folks who do this all day long. Its there job to monitor the black lists and respond to complaints of spammers etc. You can do the same - but you would need to build the relationship and spend the time on the phone.

And good luck getting the phone numbers for the black listers, you might be able to reach the ISPs, but several blacklists do not have phone numbers, and good luck arguing your case via email.

Can you do the work of 8-10 people as well as your other duties? This is one of the reasons I highly recommend going with a service provider - they have the infrastructure and people resources to do this that a one person shop doesn't.

Each provider has its own claims on deliver ability, most even pay outside auditing firms to track and report on this (at 10,s of thousands of $$$), but unless you have a small list, you're better off letting the pros do the delivering and spending your time on the message.

Now, as others have said here, if its been a long time since your last contact - many folks are simply going to have forgotten you. And the sad reality of email marketing is many folks think reporting an email as spam is just as good as hitting the un-subscribe button.

The more spam reports you get - the more likely either your service provider, or worse, your hosting/ISP provider, will simply shut down your access/account rather than spend the time to fix things or investigate the cause. You're very much guilty until you prove youre innocence. And for good reason - you're ISP is seldom the last link in your network, and if they get too many complaints, their upstream provider will shut them down. They can't really take the chance since one customer who is spamming can bring down their entire network for their other paying customers.

This is why so many professional spammers now use bot nets scattered around the world.

Good Luck.

I know there are a lot of questions, but we are very new to sending out emails.

Many thanks in advance.

Sam

HTH,
best,

--Jack

[IM Headlines]

Go for aweber . They're one of the best

[Michael Mayhew]

Autoresponse Plus is the BOMB. Been using it for years.
Follow Up Autoresponder and Mailing List Software - AutoResponse Plus

You host it and can upload as many emails as you want.

Don't listen to all the "you will get blacklisted crap" "poor deliverability". I guarantee
95% of the people spreading that Bull Sh** have never hosted their own script.

Been using it 5 years plus without issues.

[shermancox]

I think it is an important consideration on how you will contact these people. If you have never contacted them, it is almost certain you will get a number of SPAM complaints. I get SPAM complaints and my list is double opt in and I contact them once or twice a week.

At any rate, I would suggest maybe giving them a free ebook or something. Tell them that you want to reward them for being your customer and all they have to do request the book through double opt in....

However you do it, you want to be careful how you contact these folks who you have never contacted before, even if they have agreed to be on your list....

why spend needless money ... If you are already paying for hosting then use your own server.. Then if you feel the need to still spend $20 or so a month, give it to a worthwhile charity that actually helps people..

James

[InfoAcademy]

Hi TelegramSam -

When you are evaluating the different services, here are 13 questions you can ask - Email Marketing with Email Newsletter Services - Part 2 | InfoMarketingOnline.com - Get Your Message Out Online

This list also gives you info about some of the different services (including which ones I think are easiest to use) - Email Marketing with Email Newsletter Services - Part 1 | InfoMarketingOnline.com - Get Your Message Out Online

We've experimented with hosting our own list and it's just more work than I wanted. I'd rather pay a service and outsource all those headaches. Just my two cents and hope that helps.

[TelegramSam]

Thanks everyone for your valuable comments.

It's interesting that there are so many different opinions.

Some say use an external hosting solution, some say buy software and do it yourself.

Mmmmm. Definitely something to read up on a bit more. I am happy hosting myself if it gives me the flexibility I want and if the emails I send get through just as much as aweber and GetResponse.

I suppose that is the ultimate test.

I will do a bit more reading up and share my thoughts again from the research I do.

If anyone has any more to say on this please carry on commenting. I am learning a great deal already so thank you everyone.

Cheers.

[jacktackett]

With all due respect Michael - that's not BS - its just a fact of life in email marketing. While running several different data centers I've personally had to deal with these issues on behalf of thousands of customers. Please don't do our fellow warriors a disservice by implying black listing doesn't happen. It does. Doesn't matter if you're self hosting the service or using others such as aWeber or iContact.

As for hosting your own scripts - use the search function here and lookup my thoughts on Neil's script - but I'll make it easy for folks - I too think its the best script for self hosting autoresponders. I in fact use it for small lists I have.

respectfully,
--Jack

Originally Posted by TelegramSam

Many thanks everyone for the responses so far. Much appreciated.

A key factor in which service to use is deliverability.

All of these addresses are from genuine customers of ours.

However, no one knows that apart from us and our customers.

I have a number of questions and hopefully there are some wise folks here who can help further:

1) What is the best service to use to get the emails into their inboxes?

(We know about not using certain words in the email etc). However, I understand that no matter waht you put into your email, some isp's will still not deliver 100% into inboxes.

2) How does an isp know if an email address is single opt in or double opt in?

3) Is there any geographic preference in getting emails delivered by getresponse and aweber?

(Our email addresses are split roughly 50/50 between the USA and Europe.)

4) Why is there less chance of getting emails delivered into inboxes if we send them from our desktop machines?

5) Is there anything our company can do to get isp's (msn, aol, gmail, hotmail etc...) to know that we don't send spam and our customers want our newsletter?

I know there are a lot of questions, but we are very new to sending out emails.

Many thanks in advance.

Sam

Originally Posted by Michael Mayhew

Autoresponse Plus is the BOMB. Been using it for years.
Follow Up Autoresponder and Mailing List Software - AutoResponse Plus

You host it and can upload as many emails as you want.

Don't listen to all the "you will get blacklisted crap" "poor deliverability". I guarantee
95% of the people spreading that Bull Sh** have never hosted their own script.

Been using it 5 years plus without issues.

[TokiTover]

For me getresponse does the job... I also had aweber but delays sometimes bug. Or like someone had said, use your own server if you are strapped for cash.

[quiescen]

Why not use Google or Yahoo Groups. It's free, deliverablity is great, and people trust the brand image.

[mailco]

I would recommend Mailloop also

[InfoAcademy]

Originally Posted by quiescen

Why not use Google or Yahoo Groups. It's free, deliverablity is great, and people trust the brand image.

When I first started back in 2001, I used Yahoo Groups because it was free - except that every message I sent included Yahoo's advertising.....and to switch away from Yahoo Groups, everyone on my list would have to resubscribe/re opt-in. So in my opinion, that's why you should really make this decision carefully and for the long-term so you don't have to switch later.