Which is your preferred email marketing (list) software, and why?
BACKSTORY:Recently, a customer ordered an ebook from a website I own, and never received the autoresponder confirming the sale and providing the registration key to open it.
He was aware it should have been sent right away and contacted me by email.
I have my sales fulfillment system configured so that I always receive a copy of such emails and did in fact receive a copy of the one that was sent to him, so I knew it was sent out. I copied the contents and pasted them into a personal response and sent it off.
The next day, he wrote again, asking why he had not heard from me. I suspected something was wrong and replied to his email immediately simply acknowledging that email and asking him to write back immediately as there seemed to be a problem.
Not hearing from him, I had my wife email from her account (we share the same Internet access via a router and both have Earthlink accounts) to ask if had received ANY emails from me, and to call if he had not. He did receive her email and called me. He did not receive ANY of my emails---and I had not received any bounceback/undeliverable notices at all.
Nasty problem, eh?
His address was a cox.net address and the techs there indicate that my address may have been added to their blocked list, possibly because I've sent out bulk mailings.
I have indeed sent out mailings over the last year to a list of almost 800 subscribers, all of whom were double opt-ins and happy to get my information. I have been using the business version (5.2) of Group Mail to send email to this list.
CURRENT SITUATION: Because of this incident, I am very concerned that my email marketing efforts may be being trashed by ISPs who decide that my requested emails are in fact spam, and not send them as addressed OR bounce them back to me. So after some research, I'm leaning toward using a service to handle this list and two others I will be using (also opt-in) with a little over 600 on one and 375 on the third list.
I am looking at AWeber, Constant Contact, iContact, and Get Response. What I'm seeing is claims from them all of high delivery rate and ability to report how many were delivered and read.
I notice that AWeber will not let me export my list into their service without sending the list names an email requesting verification that they are in fact registered members. This strikes me as a relatively unnecessary waste of time, and an annoyanace factor to the recipients.
So, what say you?
Is that requirement passive or negative, and what is your experience or knowledge of these services, as well as of Group Mail?
He was aware it should have been sent right away and contacted me by email.
I have my sales fulfillment system configured so that I always receive a copy of such emails and did in fact receive a copy of the one that was sent to him, so I knew it was sent out. I copied the contents and pasted them into a personal response and sent it off.
The next day, he wrote again, asking why he had not heard from me. I suspected something was wrong and replied to his email immediately simply acknowledging that email and asking him to write back immediately as there seemed to be a problem.
Not hearing from him, I had my wife email from her account (we share the same Internet access via a router and both have Earthlink accounts) to ask if had received ANY emails from me, and to call if he had not. He did receive her email and called me. He did not receive ANY of my emails---and I had not received any bounceback/undeliverable notices at all.
Nasty problem, eh?
His address was a cox.net address and the techs there indicate that my address may have been added to their blocked list, possibly because I've sent out bulk mailings.
I have indeed sent out mailings over the last year to a list of almost 800 subscribers, all of whom were double opt-ins and happy to get my information. I have been using the business version (5.2) of Group Mail to send email to this list.
CURRENT SITUATION: Because of this incident, I am very concerned that my email marketing efforts may be being trashed by ISPs who decide that my requested emails are in fact spam, and not send them as addressed OR bounce them back to me. So after some research, I'm leaning toward using a service to handle this list and two others I will be using (also opt-in) with a little over 600 on one and 375 on the third list.
I am looking at AWeber, Constant Contact, iContact, and Get Response. What I'm seeing is claims from them all of high delivery rate and ability to report how many were delivered and read.
I notice that AWeber will not let me export my list into their service without sending the list names an email requesting verification that they are in fact registered members. This strikes me as a relatively unnecessary waste of time, and an annoyanace factor to the recipients.
So, what say you?
Is that requirement passive or negative, and what is your experience or knowledge of these services, as well as of Group Mail?
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ASKER
(1) RE: blacklist. Your comments are unsettling. My knowledge of this area is closer to novice than even mildly experienced. How do I know or determine if my email address is tied to the domain I am using? I use my own, Earthlink-provided email (my name @ earthlink.net) rather than @ mywebsite .com. If it's possible for my address to be blacklisted because something sensed "Hey, this guy just sent out 500 emails," how do I determine that, and what do I do to get my name off the blacklist(s)?
(2) On average, I email a newsletter once a month to my lists, for a current total of 1,746. There will be 3-4 months which will see an additional mailing, so we're talking about 3,492 emails in those months. All sales offers in those emails will direct subscribers to a web page, and the sales process will use steps that do not interface with the email program.
I will examine the services you mention and see if anyone else wants to reply t this question over the next day or two.