Re: EmailList&MailMarketers?

**D* G* <d*@gmail.com>**

As Yvonne said, I use aweber.com for my lists.  I send about 15K a week and
I find it has a good stats and analysis programme. I particularly like the
spam filter data they provide.
I'm not an expert but I do understand several things (from the school of
hard knocks I'm afraid).    Most lists that are not sent out via a high-end
mailing company are "dirty".  This means there is a high percentage of dead
or spam-filtered addresses on them.  I took a 10K list to aweber and had it
reduced to 3K by their software. They simply said it was a very dirty list
and they wouldn't send it out "as is". And that came from what I though was
a decent system.  So I know the 15K subscribers are now "real".

The other issue is one of spam-filtering.  I'm not sure how many of you know
that many folks simply hit the spam button to unsubscribe from your
mailouts. Doesn't matter if you have big unsub buttons - they use the spam
button.  If you get enough of these spam unsubs, your list is marked as
"spam" by the major isp's and all your mailings wind up in the spam bucket
unless specifically whitelisted by the subscriber (and most don't do that).
 So - when mailing from your own website with your own software I can almost
guarantee your list is in trouble for this reason.   The majors (constant
contact, aweber, ) - I can't speak to the others - all have and maintain
relationships with the isp's so if there is a change in policy, software etc
they get warnings and adjust the mailing software accordingly.

This entire topic is one addressed quite a bit on sites such as clickz or
grokdotcom - and it's big business.  I've barely scratched the surface of it
but I do know that you should do your due diligence on all software
mailings.

Doug

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 4:32 AM, Miriam Young <info@plantingstories.com>wrote:

> I use MailChimp for my GardenPress.Info mailings.
> It manages contacts reliably, allows good access to stats and ability to
> segment lists on various criteria, including response activity to previous
> mailings.
> Nice, friendly interface, live chat support and lots of advice resources.
> The same company as Survey Monkey, so with a very good pedigree.
>
> www.mailchimp.com
>
> Miriam
>
>
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-- 
Doug Green @douggreen
Editor-in-Chief
SGF Publishing  www.simplegiftsfarm.com
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