Question

Topic: E-Marketing

Email Deliverability Issues

Posted by BSFNS2 on 10/27/2010 at 12:54 PM ET 25 Points
I use a bulk email program, SendBlaster, to deliver emails to school districts using direct mode and COX smtp server (my business high speed ISP) as my secondary mode of delivery. When emailing schools, some districts receive my emails using the direct mode but sometimes I get something like, ‘unable to connect to smtp’, ‘smtp rejected’ or some error of that nature when I email to other school districts. Using the COX smtp server, I get reports that the email was delivered to those schools that reject the direct mode. However, I have been getting very few responses as the site that monitors my email deliveries, https://www.trackemailmarketing.com, reports that very few emails are read with no unsubscribers. I tend to believe that even the COX smtp server is having difficulty delivering to these school districts.

I have tried delivering html and text emails to these school districts with the same results. Before I emailing, I always run my emails through a system like Spam Assassin to make sure that my score is low.

It is my understanding that some school districts have very strict spam filters that eliminate spam as well as legitimate emails.

My questions are:

1) Would utilizing the services of a website specifically geared toward email delivery such as https://www.graphicmail.com be able to effectively send emails to the school districts that I cannot reach?
2) Would sending emails manually, one at a time without using a bulk email program, get my emails delivered? Is so, should I use html or text emails for best delivery? In addition, should I use Outlook or my aol account for best delivery?

Thanks.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by michael on 10/27/2010 at 1:15 PM Accepted
    A lot goes into the rubric for spam filters.

    Known spam ISPs.
    Things like hotmail, gmail, yahoo get rejected a lot. using bcc.
    certain key words.
    certain links (always use https:// not just www)
    time of day

    Michael


  • Posted by steven.alker on 11/1/2010 at 6:28 PM Accepted
    I would take issue with the statement that Outlook is not scalable – an the assumption that you might cc or bcc things may not be correct. Do you cc? That is a guaranteed way of getting your personal address blocked.

    Sending emails via outlook, one by one is perfectly possible from within the Microsoft Office Suit, and it is possible to personalise them, but it is inefficient and fiddly – you need a data file, and email merge template and a routine to put an email address into outlook from the data file.

    Doing your emails from a CRM system with an html email function operating through an SMPT server is the next best thing to using a contracted service – you can then use any proxy server you like, and track the openings, non-openings and bounce-backs and analyse them for the reasons for bouncing. If there is a click-through then you can even monitor that! Have a look at Maximizer Enterprise 11 or Saleforce.com for that facility.

    In truth, we have not supplied a CRM system where the primary purpose is emailing the records, for about 24 months. It is a nice add on to a CRM system, but the hosted solutions rule the day.

    By the way, if your emails go to someone@somewher.com and you don’t know their name to merge their details, you are again going to suffer low opening rates and high rejection rates. As someone else said, contacting your recipients and asking them for permission to be white listed is the soundest strategy – if you can’t do that then with the best will in the world, your activities are likely to be deemed as uninvited spam.
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