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Sending Email to Old List (Self-Hosted)

by taliesin2165
7 replies
Hi. My business provides marketing services to media companies. For years I've been using the Interspire Email Marketer > SMTP.com > Modwest server combination for my clients email marketing (which I totally manage for them). I've always allowed my clients to provide their in-house client list. I know they're not "opt-in", but it was never a problem until a few months ago when I got an email from Modwest about too many spam complaints. Since then, I stopped allowing new clients to provide a non opt-in in-house list.

Well, now I want to email my personal list of 3,200 opt-in email addresses for the first time in two-years. I can only assume when I do I'm going to get a ton of spam complaints. I guess I have two questions.

1. Should I write a "Where Have I Been?" subject line, offer a prominent unsubscribe link and cross my fingers?

2. If I do send out this email and get kicked off of my Modwest server, is there another server you could recommend I move to so I don't mess things up for my clients?

Any suggestions you have on these questions or alternative game plans I'm not thinking of, I'd appreciate it. Thanks for any help you can provide.
#email #interspire #list #modwest #selfhosted #sending #smtp
  • Profile picture of the author davidverney
    You can try putting "Where Have I Been?" in the subject heading, but I suggest you get the csv file of your list before you send anything out to them. You should try using one of the bigger autoresponder companies like Aweber or GetResponse if you do get kicked off by Modwest.

    However, they have probably forgotten who you are. Sometimes, I remember a name for many years - especially if that person has really helped me in the past. If you made a big enough impression on them a couple of years ago, they should remember who you are now.

    Hope this helps
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  • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
    I like that subject line. A nice freebie will also go a long way to building some reciprocation.

    But before you mail, you need to clean that list. Emails normally have a 6 month period before they're considered stale.

    Run your list through a 3rd party service to clean them of hard and soft bounces and invalid addresses. This will keep your server IP clean with the ESPs. Here are 2 good ones recommended by MailChimp themselves.

    Data Validation | Welcome MailChimp Customer!

    True Email Verification: BriteVerify
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  • Profile picture of the author taliesin2165
    Great idea on the cleaning, JP. I've never used that tool. What's a guesstimate on how much cleaning a three year old, 3,200 list might cost?
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    • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
      Originally Posted by taliesin2165 View Post

      Great idea on the cleaning, JP. I've never used that tool. What's a guesstimate on how much cleaning a three year old, 3,200 list might cost?
      With BriteVerify, 0-250K is 0.01 per email. So $32. Additional pricing for higher counts is on their homepage.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Ray
    two years is a long time in the IM world... and the people we email usually have a very short memory.

    To be honest if you mailed them I would Get them cleaned (looks like you have that under control) and then email them in 2 or 3 separate smaller pieces. It does not take too many complaints and then you have to start dealing with the hassle that brings. If you get too much static then you might want to dump the list all together. But this way you didn't go all in and really burn things up.
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  • Profile picture of the author jaouadk
    I would recommend putting a reminder on top of your email, of how they got into your list, and point them to your unsubscribe link if they wish to opt-out.

    This way you will get unsubscribes but not spam complaints.

    Just make that reminder very apparent, bold it, put yellow background with black text.
    Show them that they can simply click unsubscribe if they don't want to continue receiving emails from you.
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  • Profile picture of the author JensSteyaert
    I guess you can use some tricks to make them remember who you are, shouldn't be too hard...

    However make sure you clean the list before sending to them. There's a tool here as WSO called listcleaner which might be helpful, it's about 20 bucks i think. Better be safe for this type of thing.
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