Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Mass Email Marketing To Deliver Inbox!

Posted by behappy1119 on 4/27/2009 at 3:20 AM ET 500 Points
Hi,

I have tried mass email marketing recently, and have left hanging on the experience with many questions. Briefly, we are in the cleaning business. We collect email from our existing customers and also purchase email list from online companies. We test trial Aweber, Constant Contact, and iContact. We decide to stay with iContact because it is the only company that does not requrire opt-in confirmation from the list.

Of course among the "purchased list", there're many bounces, complains... We learned to remove the AOL users from our auto email list and move them to the list that require confirmation before sending them the first marketing email.

We have a list of 5000 valid emails to play with. We notice when we break the list down to small portions (less than 200 per batch sent), the opening rate seem to be higher. For ex: if we send the same email to 2000 contacts, the average opening rate is 5%. But if we send the same email to a list of 200 contacts, the opening seem to triple or quadruple! Our test is too small to come to a conclusion. But do you know for a fact that sending a small batch email of few hundreds affect the opening rate as oppossed to sending to a few thousand?

When we send the email, iContact would track the message and let us know the "Delivery Rate". My question is how do I know or make these emails deliver into the prospects' INBOX versus SPAM?

We have sent about 20,000 emails total to these 5000 contacts within 1.5 months with the consistent opening rate of 5% - 10%. The last batch of about 4000 emails, we were shocked at the low opening rate of less than 1%. We suspect that there may be some technical difficulty on our host to deliver these emails. Just in case technical difficulty is NOT the problem, what else could be the cause of the low opening rate? Our subject title is: "DRY CLEAN. Buy One, Get One HALF OFF".

Among these service providers: iContact, GetResponse, Constant Contact, Aweber, is there one "better" than the other? What would you recommend?

What's my other options to send out emails and are able to TRACK? We don't have an inhouse admin to set up the server, so I still have to reply on a third party provider to set up these things. (Just in case, in house server benefit/results quadruple third party mailing house, I would definitely consider paying one-time fee to have the server set up).

There are many companies on the web who promise to send out hundred thousands of emails (using their own list) to my target geographics area for a cost of about $400 (one time email only). Is it worth a try or is it a scam?

There are also many compaines on the web who sell list of contacts of key business decision makers. Are those list any good?

Bottom line, we are a small business looking for a better way to email marketing our customers & prospects. We try not to spend tons of time plus an arm & a leg with our own trial & error things! :-) Your profesional feedback is truly appreciated.

Thanks much.
ML
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 4/27/2009 at 8:36 AM Accepted
    I would have expected the same open rate no matter the list size, since (theoretically) the service is simply sending a-message-at-a-time to everyone on your list. My guess is your sample size isn't large enough and chunks of your email addresses aren't being opened (or are routed to spam).

    Before you try to blast out even more emails, study the results of what you have done. How many of these emails resulted in visits to your website? Dry cleaning clients? If the conversion rate is low, then you will have to send out a huge number of emails to get "enough" customers.

    If you haven't already invested in SEO (to have people find your website who are looking for dry cleaning), do so. Have tried comarketing with local professional organizations (whose members may be ideal customers for you)?
  • Posted by marketbase on 4/27/2009 at 9:05 AM Accepted
    Unfortunately, the economy may well be putting a wet blanket on those emails. Dry cleaning is a luxury in times like these. Consider changing the subject line to include a benefit that dry cleaning offers (coats, wedding/prom dresses, spot/stain removal, etc.) and be sure that your target email list(s) contain both local business and consumers. (Spread that 'net' wider than just the immediate area, too?)

    Best of luck,
    jag
    MarketBase
  • Posted by wnelson on 4/27/2009 at 11:02 AM Accepted
    Moon Le,

    Your decline in "open rate" could be because you probably are "SPAMMING" your list! You sent on the average of 4 emails each to 5000 people! That's about one a week. It could be that your emails are not of interest to these folks - they read it once, OK. Some decided they weren't interested, some read a second. After a second one, some more decided it wasn't of interest. Little by little, you may find most decide not to open it.

    Using iContact because it doesn't require opt-in - that' is VERY BAD email marketing! Many SPAM filters will look at this lack of requirement for opt-in and automatically filter out those emails from servers/providers who don't have good email practices. In general, the more strict the email provider is, the higher the chances of getting through the SPAM filters.

    If you are just sending coupons, specials, and ads that say, "Here we are," then I would say your open rate will suffer! It's not of value to anyone else. Does anyone really open the Viagra ads from Canadian Pharmacy? I doubt it! It's SPAM. If you actually have something to SAY - like how to care for fabrics, stain removal, and other things - that you put into a newsletter, your open rate should be better. Keep in mind that with social networking and email marketing, people aren't looking to be sold! They will take "free information" and because of the content/value, will attribute that to your business, and then, use your services. It's OK to have a coupon with your email newsletter, but there has to be more than that, or it's not of value.

    As far as the rate of open for small groups, I agree with Jay. That shouldn't happen! Have you sent all 5000 at 200 per emailing and looked at the aggregate rate? That would be the test. Statistically, you could find 200 in 5000 that could open at 15% and still have an overall average of 5% - depending on how homogeneous the database is and how random the selection of 200 is.

    For the very best ideas and practices on how to do good quality email marketing, including opt-in strategies, message writing, and subject composing, MarketingProfs has an email that comes a couple times a week and is EXCELLENT. See the archives here:

    https://www.marketingprofs.com/news/email-marketing/archive.asp?adref=NemM2...

    I hope this helps.

    Wayde
  • Posted on 4/27/2009 at 1:40 PM Accepted
    Hi Moon Le,

    I'd recommend you check out the book, "Email Marketing By the Numbers" by Chris Baggott. Chris was in the dry cleaning business when he started to realize how email could be used to build his business. He went on to co-found ExactTarget, now one of the leading email marketing companies.

    A little investment of your time with this book will give you a solid understanding of what works and what doesn't work in email marketing and why.

    There is also no shortage of specific advice on how to fine tune your email marketing. A number of leading email vendors regularly publish whitepapers. Many are available in ClickMail Marketing's eMarketing Library...https://www.clickmailmarketing.com/library.html

    Best regards,

    Brian Steacy - ClickMail Marketing
  • Posted by matthewmnex on 4/27/2009 at 8:56 PM Accepted
    The ISP's categorize mails is very complex.

    It is a perrenial problem for all of us email marketers.

    We are delivering successfully upwards of 20M mails per month and it is a constant battle to get into the inbox.

    In your case, you have tiny volumes so you have no worries.

    Here is the real answer.

    200 mails, no problem. The ISP's tagit as personal mail and let it through.

    The larger volumes are considered SPAM and are directed to the SPAM boxes.

    This clearly explains the reason why the open rates are low. Since it went to the SPAM the users never saw it and hence did not iopen.

    The simple solution for you is - Keep sending in small batches and you will be fine :)

    IN terms of purchasing lists - be very very careful about who you buy from and how the lists were collected.

    Pay only for mails successfully sent and do not pay for bad addresses.

    Please feel free to get in touch if you want more info on deliverability.

    Good luck.

    Matthew
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