Staying in Touch with Many

      You’re reading an electronic newsletter that comes to you compliments of an Internet based service offered by a company called Vertical Response. Their service is the fourth email management system we’ve used. This newsletter started as a printed newsletter that we sent out monthly back in 1993. From there, it became a fax that we sent beginning in 1995. Then it turned into an email that we built with Microsoft FrontPage and distributed using Outlook in 1997. Each time we changed, some of our readers resisted, however, with each change we were able to reach more people with less time, effort, and cost. Lately, many of you have been making this transition, or starting to communicate with your customers and prospects with informational electronic newsletters. Let me help you avoid mistakes that could lead your domain to the email blacklist.

There is no Internet standard for validating the sender of an email. That has led to a flurry of innovative solutions by the various email software providers. The details of these schemes are too complicated for this article. The final result is that it takes very little for someone to declare you a spammer. Once the first person points a finger at you, others pile on and before you know it, you’re on the blacklist and no one can get emails from anyone in your office. Getting cleared is much easier that getting accused, so it’s best to avoid getting accused. That’s where email services come in.

Companies like Vertical Response, or local providers Exact Target and Neighborhood Email, have worked through the labyrinth of rules and regulations to ensure that your e-newsletter doesn’t get you declared a spammer. They’ve built easy-to-use tools for developing your newsletter and a full system for managing your recipients, including opt in and opt out capabilities. Additionally, they provide you with detailed information about who opened your newsletter and when and whether they clicked on any of the links. You get all of this at a cost of about a penny and a half per email. What a bargain!