How An SMTP Rely Service Helps

Unless you are an IT professional or have a special interest in learning more about how to use email more efficiently you have probably never heard of an SMTP relay service. Don’t worry if you haven’t, they are relatively simple to understand and once you know the basics seeing why they are so useful will be a breeze.

Understanding the Basics
SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and it is the most common way that all internet email systems communicate with each other. Basically the SMTP relay acts a lot like a snail mail post offic mail sorting facility. It reads the incoming email to determine where it should go to and then sends it to the respective SMTP server.

The use of SMTP means that the email address us type in to the receiver, and yours as the sender, are unlikely associated with a particular email client on an SMTP server. This is why email gets to you each and every time through the same server systems.

What are SMTP Relay Services?
Without using an SMTP relay service every individual email sent and received has to come from a specific dedicated email client which is on your SMTP server. This then relays or passes forward the message to the receivers SMTP server, even if it is not the same as yours.

Without the use of an SMTP relay service your email server could only send to email addresses also on that server, which would make emailing virtually impossible as a technology. It would be as if you could only mail letters to people that use your same post office and same postal code.

Open and User Authentication SMTP Relay Service Options
An open SMTP relay service allows the server to send emails anywhere and to and from any email address. In other words, it is completely open to all users. If spammers are on these systems they can quickly send millions of emails to all other open SMTP servers through the relay.

User authentication SMTP relay service is stricter in the types of emails they can process. This is because the user is authenticated through their SMTP server which is then relayed to the receiving SMTP server as proof that the email is not spam and, in fact, is from an authorized sender.

Using an SMTP relay service, particularly a user authentication system, will ensure that your emails get where you need them to be without being mislabeled as spam.

The Benefits Of Using A Bulk Email Service For A Small Business

As a small business owner or a manager you may think that your current email provider is doing a great job handling your email needs. What you may not know if you are not using a bulk email service is that some of your emails, including your sales and marketing bulk emails, are either not being delivered or are ending up going directly to spam.  

The Problems with Your Email
The reasons that these issues happen has to do with how an email server both handles the outgoing bulk email and how the receiving email servers see it. When there are bulk emails sent from specific email addresses, and you are not using a bulk email service, they are simply tagged as spam and never hit your customer’s inboxes.

The other issue that you may not be aware of is that all email servers have a limit as to the number of outgoing emails they will process per day. This can be as low as 200 or much higher and it is based on the service and the system in use. If you are not using a bulk email service any emails over that amount may be queued until the system resets, typically in 24 hours, or they may simply be deleted off the system.  

The Answer is in a Bulk Email Service
A bulk email service, on the other hand, is set up to handle any number of outgoing emails without impacting your regular email server. You simply develop a professional looking email using a customizable template and send it through the bulk email service that has all your contacts in a database.

The system will quickly send all your emails, complete a track and trace, and even provide real time reports on when they are delivered to the customer’s inbox. Top systems can even go beyond that and tell you the time that your customers opened the email sent through the bulk email service and even if they opened the email more than once.

 Using a bulk email service is the only way for any sized business to make sure that their mass marketing campaigns are delivered, tracked, and don’t end up as spam.

Choosing The Best From The Top Email Marketing Providers

As a business owner, marketing manager or an entrepreneur finding email marketing providers can be a bit overwhelming if you aren’t familiar with all the different features, options, packages and variables offered.

This can become even more complicated when browsing through the websites of email marketing providers you are considering and getting caught up in the package that they are promoting or the services that they indicate you have to have. 

 

To avoid these issues, and to ensure you get the right company for your needs, there are some simple steps that you can take even if you aren’t a techie. By using these strategies you can compare different email marketing providers and find one that works for your business at a price that you can afford. 

 

List Your Needs

Start by considering what you want the email marketing providers to be able to do for your company. This can include how many subscribers you have now and how fast you anticipate growth. Since you will be paying by subscriber you don’t want to overestimate or take on a big package and end up paying for systems that you don’t use. 

 

Consider how each of the email marketing companies allows you to upgrade as well so your email provider can keep pace with your growth. 

 

Ease of Use

For those not comfortable with doing things on their own look at email marketing providers that have a good selection of templates, easy user interfaces and basic control options that are intuitive to use. 

 

Most companies will provide a demo or trail of their services so you can test out the system and get a feel for its ease of use. 

 

Analytics

Carefully reviewing the different tracking and reporting options that different email marketing providers give you is also critical. Like user interfaces and templates you want these reports and tracking options to be simple to use and understand and also designed to track relevant information. 

 

The top email marketing providers actually provide real time reporting and tracking of emails, which can be valuable in many ways for companies. The more options that the company offers for tracking that is relevant and insightful the more effective you can make your email marketing right from your first customer contact.

Tips For Setting Up A Great Corporate Email ID System

Choosing a uniform way to set up your corporate email ID that can grow as your business grows is an important consideration. Unfortunately many companies don’t stop to think about the little issues that can come up in setting up an email throughout a business and end up with unworkable email addresses. 

 

One of the least effective ways to set up your corporate email ID system is to simply allow employees to choose their own identification. This results in an inconsistent way to identify people throughout the company and can lead to emails constantly going astray. 

 

Choosing a Top Corporate Email ID

One of the first things that you need to do is decide on the corporate ID itself. Ideally it should link to your website or company name in a very clear and easy to determine way. For example if you are starting the XYZ Toy Company a good corporate email ID could be:

• xyztoyco.com
• xyztoys.com
• xyztoycompany.com

These clearly indicate your brand and allow people to easily email you even if they aren’t looking right at their contact list. Less effective email IDs would leave out the XYZ or the toy company information. 

 

Personal Identification

Having a personal approach to corporate email ID development is preferable over simply using a title or a department. This helps to create the interpersonal connection between your clients and your employees that is essential in business growth and client retention. 

 

Instead of having an email that is sent to “complaints”, “orders”, “techsupport” or “customerservice” @xyztoyco.com use the actual person’s name that will be assisting the client in ordering, with technical support, or in placing an order. 

 

Personal Names

Having a standard way of identifying people in corporate email ID that is uniform throughout the company is also important so emails get where they are supposed to go. Use a standard system that can include first and last names, first initials and last names or any combination. 

 

Try to avoid just first names as your corporate email ID system as hiring two people with the same name then creates the need to add to the last hired email address that makes it out of synch with the others.

How To Increase Your Mass Email Marketing Contact List

There are a lot of different options to generate a list of people that want to be included in your company’s mass email marketing campaign. Unfortunately some companies use strategies and options that not only are irritating to customers but that are considered to be unethical and even against internet use policies. 

 

It is important to avoid mass email marketing where people have not elected to be included. In other words, have people opt-in to your emails rather than simply cold emailing from a list. Ideally customers will get to your opt-in button through visiting your website, interacting with your business Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram account or through actually providing their email at a trade fair or other type of personal interaction with your company. 

 

Current Customers

Asking your current customers, at the time of purchase, to opt into your mass email marketing program is a great idea. At this time they are interested in your products and your company and, if they get a welcome or thank you email and the newsletter attached, they can then choose to continue to receive them through the opt-in process. 

 

People do like practical, informative and relevant mass email marketing programs that share what they want to learn more about. Short stories, how to tips, videos, links to other resources and even ideas for alternative uses for products are all popular with consumers. 

 

Target Different People for Different Mass Email Marketing

Although it may be called mass email marketing, everyone that is on your contact list or in your customer database is not interested in the same things. Learning more about your customers through surveys during the sign-up process can be helpful in sending just the email marketing that they need to have. 

 

By shorting or categorizing clients or customers by interests, purchases and buying habits, geographic location, age or other relevant data you can easy tweak a newsletter to be relevant to many different groups. Using templates that are very user friendly further simplifies this process. 

 

Taking full advantage of different mass email marketing strategies to build your contact lists and customer databases is essential, but getting a top quality newsletter out to your customers is just as important.

Three Reasons A Dedicated SMTP Server Is A Business Asset

In business, regardless of the size or the type, everything is either an asset or a liability. Those things that help your business grow, expand and thrive, such as a dedicated SMTP server, quality marketing and advertising programs, and use of social media are assets. Those that don’t benefit your company and cost you money are costly liabilities.

There are several ways that you can use your dedicated SMTP server asset to help your business, learn more about your email marketing campaigns, and even speed up how your email is being delivered to your customers and clients.

Avoid Becoming Spam
When you use a top company offering a dedicated SMTP server and management package you have the ability to literally track each and every email you send, even those bulk marketing emails. This is not offered through all packages and all companies, but it is an important option to consider.

With this ability you can easily eliminate people from your distribution lists and databases that are indicating that your marketing emails are spam. This will ensure that your company’s corporate ID is not compromised and that your emails get through to those that request them, open them and that value the information you provide.

Routing in the Fast Lane
With a dedicated SMTP server you never have to worry about your bulk delivery ending up in a queue waiting for everyone else’s bulk delivery to go through. Instead, the email will be send as soon as you schedule it and you can track it, in real time, to see just how quickly it reaches your customers and then when and how often they open it or click on embedded links.

Another benefit to consider with routing is that a dedicated SMTP server will always ensure that the routing for your email delivery is the fastest option. Your email will go from Point A to Point B quickly and efficiently.
Remember also that a top company that provides dedicated SMTP server services should also provide 24/7 support. This will ensure that your email is always up and running and integrates with all your current applications including webmail and bulk mail sending systems and applications.

3 Ways To Enhance Your Bulk Email Marketing Strategy

Most businesses use some form of bulk email marketing to get their product, brand, service or company front and center in the minds of their customers. However, email marketing that is never read, or even worse marked as spam, is not effective and may actually be hurting your ability to reach new clients and customers.

The key to a successful bulk email marketing strategy is to know what information you want to provide to your customers, what your customers want to know to get them interested in your products, and what types of writing, content and marketing campaigns actually generate trips to your website to make a purchase.

This is all information that is available from a bulk email marketing service that offers tracking options. Using the analytics available today prevents you from simply thinking that your customers find value in your emails to actually having the data that backs up that claim. 

 

Newsletters

Newsletters are a wonderful way to both promote your business and products as well as provide selective information for your customers about what you want them to buy. By carefully selecting your newsletter content to address how your products and services can fill a need in their life your bulk email marketing campaign will generate interest in your website and increased sales.

To monitor this use a bulk email marketing program that offers link tracking. This will allow you to see if customers get to your website by clicking on links from your newsletters. 

 

Targeted Promotions

Another essential consideration is to have some way through your bulk email marketing service to track customer interests, purchases and their geographic locations. This will provide you with the data you need to target your newsletters, promotions or even special event sales to only those that the information is relevant for. 

 

Set Up Reminders or Reorders

Sending customers a reminder or reorder form through bulk email marketing is a simple way to ensure that they order again from your company. These emails can be custom set depending on the reorder timeline based on the customer’s initial purchase. 

 

There is so much more to bulk email marketing campaigns than just sending out a sales flyer or a brochure. To take full advantage of the options you do need to collect information and data through tracking and not just rely on what you think is working.

Improve Your Newsletter Marketing Program With 3 Easy Tips

For a company that has spent years in building up a client base through newsletter marketing there comes a time to really evaluate the return on investment that the program provides. While companies that are using newsletter marketing specialists, freelance writers and consultants tracking and reporting on the system often have a good idea, many companies don't know how the newsletters are actually improving their business.

To avoid simple completing newsletter marketing programs that are not accomplishing anything positive you do need to take a closer look at how you are handling the campaigns and what information is available based on how your clients or customers are using your newsletters.

Track Everything

While this may seem like an impossible task if you are using a top bulk email service you will have the ability to track every email that you send. This means that you will easily be able to see in reports, often in real time, just when your newsletter marketing is being sent, when it arrives to your customer's inbox, when they open it and if they click on any of the links to take them to your website, social media site or to take any other action.

Do Not Sell

The biggest turn-off for consumers is opening newsletter marketing emails that are just high pressure sales emails. The top newsletters do have a call to action, or a prompt to get the customer to take action, but that isn't the most prominent part of the email.

Instead the newsletters offing information, coupons, discounts, contests or something of value that is related to the product or service you are trying to sell. When this is the focus of the email then customers will open them to look for new information, offers or options to consider without feeling they are just being spammed.

Professional Appearance

Sometimes newsletter marketing tends to look a bit like a cut and paste program, which in some cases is the reality. To avoid this look for a company that offers templates and design options that look professional.

By using premade templates while still adding your own content you have the option to fully customize the look without having to do everything on your own. This type of newsletter marketing program is the best received by customers, which means that is being read and perhaps even shared.

We have an amazing gallery of templates and images for your newsletter marketing program. To see our options contact us.

Three Mistakes To Avoid With Mass Email Marketing

In today's marketing world there are very few companies that don't engage in some type of mass email marketing. It could be weekly or daily sales or special emails, updates on loyalty points or reward programs, notification of new products or offers or any other range of different marketing tools and techniques.

However, many companies using mass email marketing are not using this tool effectively. This may be because they have not used mass email marketing service that provided analytics and data on how effective their campaigns are. It may also be that the company is simply unaware of the techniques that the top email campaigns use on a regular basis.

To start improving your mass email marketing and customer response check to make sure you are not making these common mistakes.

Sending Too Frequently

How frequently you send mass email marketing to your customers depends on several factors. One of the best ways to determine how frequently your customers what to receive your emails is to conduct a survey with your next email. You can ask customer to provide a number of emails per week, month or quarter and then group responses by the number they indicate.

This prevents the issue with sending mass email marketing that is unwanted and ends up getting tagged as spam or the customer unsubscribes.

Sending Excessive Images

Trying to add a bit of color and pop to your mass email marketing program is a great idea, but too many images, videos and animations cause a problem on many different types of devices. For customers will slow connections or that block images the email looks largely blank or takes forever to load. For those accessing email on mobile devices the images may to too small to see clearly, also creating a negative experience.

It is also important to have buttons and links in your mass email marketing program that allow you to track your customer's response to your email. This is the only way to find out what campaigns and advertising methods are effective with your customers so you can continue to include these in future, highly effective marketing campaigns using email.

We can provide full services for all your mass email marketing needs.

Try Out A Free Email Marketing Campaign For Your Company

It is understandable that a company needs to consider options before making a change or addition to the way that they do business. This is true for all elements of a business from marketing and advertising to how they produce their products or services. As a business that is interested in email marketing, using a free email marketing option prior to paying for a plan and service is a great option.

The key to finding the right free email marketing service is to look at the features that they offer. You want to be able to track and see reports on the marketing program to determine if it makes financial sense to include this in your company or business growth plans.

Social Integration

If you are considering using a free email marketing service for your next or your first email marketing campaign you should verify that it can be fully integrated with your existing or yet to be created social media sites. This allows you to maximize your company or business exposure through both.

You will be able to track how many people accessed your social media site from your newsletter and also how many people clicked on a link on your social media site to sign up for your newsletter or email marketing campaign.

Statistics and Reports

Needless to say all effective business decisions should be made through the use of data. Using a free email marketing service that provides reports and tracking that allows you to see which people on your lists are opening your emails and which are auto blocking or bouncing back your emails is critical.

By having this information you can clean up your contact lists and get rid of those that may be creating problems by reporting your emails as spam. If your free email marketing doesn’t offer this feature you may find that your online reputation becomes a problem. Look for a bulk email service that has a good relationship with the major ISPs and also understands any IPS volume restrictions to protect your company name.

There are some amazing free email marketing options out there if you just do some searching. This is a great way to try out an email service before making the decision that is the right one for your business.

We encourage you to try our free email marketing program.

Help Your Business By Becoming An Email Marketing Reseller

There are new options for businesses that are popping up in all types of industries, and one that is becoming increasingly popular is to use your existing bulk email service to become an email marketing reseller. This is not offered by all bulk email services but the top companies are aware that this is a program that their customers, and also their own business, can really benefit from.

How It Works

Basically as an email marketing reseller you will charge your clients a set fee to handled their bulk email and even transactional emails through your dedicated or transactional SMTP server. This makes a lot of sense since you have the server in place and you have the option to use up to a specific volume of emails. If you are not using up to that volume becoming an email marketing reseller allows you to capitalize on the difference while helping to cut your costs through revenue generation.

Another consideration is that typically the larger or the more advanced SMTP server plan that you have the lower the actual price per email is. This can actually be a significant difference, up to 0.02 cents per email, which may actually make it less costly for you. You can also add full Cloud services by actually moving up in your plan and then becoming an email marketing reseller.

You Have Control

The system, with top companies, is very easy to regulate and control. As the email marketing reseller, sometimes referred to as the Super reseller if you have multiple resellers under you, you have full access to a central control panel. This allows you to monitor all accounts and to even weed out any accounts that are using the service for spamming or any other type of unwarranted activities.

You will also have auto control to set up new accounts or to remove accounts for any type of policy violations. The resellers under you as well as their clients will have limited access to the system that allows them to access templates for emails, view relevant statistics, set up auto responder messages and even set up subscription forms and landing pages.

The result is that the email marketing reseller has full control over the system and each client has control over the elements of the system that are relevant to their needs.

If you are interested in becoming an email marketing reseller see us.

What Has Your Bulk Mail Service Done For Your Business?

Being able to track and analyze specific changes in a business campaign or marketing strategy is an essential part of making an informed decision. If you are using a bulk mail service that is not providing you with information that is of assistance in evaluating and improving your bulk email marketing sales and results then you aren't working with the right email service.

There are many top bulk mail service providers out there that have a range of different services that their clients have access to as part of the fees charge to handle all the bulk mail. These different features may require add-ons or additional charges, but they are typically the most worthwhile features for a business that really wants to understand what parts of their bulk mail service are the most effective.

Tracking Options

Just because you are using a bulk mail service doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to track and trace every outgoing email. This is not just about when it was send and when it was delivered to the customer's inbox but also when the customer actually opened the mail and which, if any links, did the customer click on.

This type of tracking is invaluable in deciding what information and marketing programs are most effective with your customers. Remember you can create subgroups for marketing with different information in the email to create a personalized feel to each bulk mailing.

Automation

As a business you also know how important automation is to help to reduce your overhead costs, including the need to have a dedicated telephone or online sales force. By using a bulk mail service that provides automatic welcome letters, birthday wishes to your contacts, follow-ups after sales and even provides delivery and shipping notification you can focus in on the job of keeping your customer's satisfied.

Automation can also include sending out notices to all your contacts when you add a new website, revise a website, add a social media site or start a campaign on any or all social media platforms.

Top bulk mail service will also work for you in maintaining current contacts, providing information on why contacts unsubscribed and also automatically import new contacts as they connect with your business over social media or through your newsletters or website.

We are a bulk mail service provider that adds value to your business.

3 Reasons You Haven’t Considered For Using A Professional SMTP Service Provider

Every ISP (Internet Service Provider) uses a server, a SMTP service provider, to allow you to send email. However, these SMTP servers are designed to handle personal emails and small bulk mailings. Most ISP SMTP servers are limited to about 250 emails per day and they will actively filter for what they can determine are bulk mailings using their free system.

Speed Up Business

For a business that is sending hundreds or thousands of emails a day an ISP SMTP server is too slow, too unreliable and too likely to filter out your emails. It also puts you at risk of being blacklisted with ISPs as a spammer. To prevent these issues companies of all sizes use a professional SMTP service provider. This gives you a dedicated IP address that is associated with all your emails, allows fast, reliable delivery and allows you to send literally as many emails per day as your computer system can handle.

While these are important reasons to choose a SMTP service provider there are other reasons that are essential from a business perspective.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

If you are using a professional SMTP service provider and have a dedicated IP then the company can identify the specific servers that will generate your emails. With this information hackers trying to set up phishing scams, sending messages that look like yours to your customers, will have much greater difficulty in getting those messages to your customers.

Analytics

Depending on the SMTP service provider that you select the analytics that they offer can be absolutely invaluable. Imagine if you could know what links in your emails your clients or customers clicked on and even the date and time they clicked the link. In addition you can also track geographic locations, when the recipient opened and read your emails, what ISP your client is using, at what time of the day your emails have the greatest chance of being read across your contact lists and even who unsubscribes and why they do it.

If you haven’t considered all the benefits to using a professional SMTP service provider it is definitely worth a look. You may be surprised to find the opportunities you are missing by not having a provider working for your business. As a top SMTP service provider we know how to get your email to your clients.

Avoid Basic Mistakes To Improve Your E-mail Marketing Program

Despite the best intentions of many company owners, marketing directors and entrepreneurs, e-mail marketing campaigns often end up with few actual results. There are several reasons why e-mail marketing programs can be ineffective and these simple mistakes are easy to spot when email design and marketing professionals aren’t involved.

One of the biggest failures of homegrown e-mail marketing programs is that consumers have difficulty in signing up for the newsletter, whitepaper or report. You want to have buttons on your website, your Facebook page, links on your Twitter feed and all other social media sites to get customers to sign up. Of course, you also have to make it attractive to get them to leave their email address, which means coming up with a way to provide information, advice, support or tips that are of value to the audience you want to market to.

Provide Short Segments, Not Long Articles

Ideally keep your tips, segments, text blocks or information to a manageable amount. This means using bullets that are:

• Short and to the point
• Give the reader useful information
• Highlight what you need them to know
• Emphasize your brand, product and service

You can link to longer articles on your website for those that want to find out more.

Avoid Little Mistakes

Typing errors, grammatical mistakes, irregular punctuation or writing style and even the font type and size will either make your e-mail marketing newsletter or report attractive and professional or messy and unprofessional. The most common mistakes include using tiny font that is difficult to read or using a font type that isn’t clear. Cursive types of fonts or extremely ornate calligraphy types of fonts are a challenge for many people and they will simply click on the next email rather than try to figure out the content.

It is also important to consider your target audience and customize the e-mail marketing to meet their needs. This may mean having different newsletters going to different groups and lists based on their interests. While this may create more work, it also is the most effective way to make sure your e-mail marketing is read and not ending up in the spam folder. We can improve your e-mail marketing program using our proven strategies and techniques.

Top Reasons To Use A Dedicated SMTP Server

Regardless of why you have to send emails it is also important for a company to have the capacity to send the information they need to the people that need to have it. This may be sending newsletters, providing monthly billing statements to your customers or even sending out daily, weekly or monthly sales emails. Having a dedicated SMTP server to handle all your outgoing emails ensures that you have peace of mind for several different reasons.

Avoid Not Being Able to Send Emails

If you are using your ISP SMTP server you will quickly discover that there are a set number of emails that can be sent from an email address through the system per day. Depending on your ISP this could be as low as a hundred or as high as a few hundred. However, once you reach this number you won’t be able to access outgoing email, sometimes until the next day.

Guaranteed Delivery with Tracking Ability

Since a dedicated SMTP server will never be identified as spam by other ISP filters, you email will get to your customer’s inbox each and every time you send. In addition, when working with a dedicated SMTP server you don’t have to just assume that is true, you will have the ability to track, in real time, if your emails have been received, read or responded to. You will also be able to track if a customer clicks on a link in your email and even how many times they went back.

24/7 Tech Support

With a dedicated SMTP server you have a whole IT department to help you out if you experience any difficulty in sending your emails or in the event of any type of error message. Look for a company providing servers that offers a solid uptime of 99.9% and 24/7 technical support.

Company Reputation

Finally, with a dedicated SMTP server, your email is never going to be listed as spam and our company won’t have to try to correct being blacklisted when you are completing bulk email campaigns.

In addition you won’t accidentally be blacklisted if some other company using a shared SMTP server is doing something wrong; you will be the only one using that server. This, and the other reasons listed above, are certainly top reasons to go with a dedicated SMTP server for your bulk emails.

We have more information on the value of a dedicated SMTP server for your business.