advice Email solution for outbound?

[twiki]

Anyone doing email outbound: Can you describe what solution you use?

Until now I haven't tackled outbound (much), but about to.

Right now, we have our own email servers (had them for a decade), but we aren't doing email marketing at all, just normal office communication and everything is inbound. So we've able to maintain perfect deliverability in such a situation. Once a couple years we get in some blacklist by accident but we fix that quick.

However, doing outbound offers is different.

I'm sure people will flag some emails as spam. I've been thinking of using a gmail or whatever free email address BUT this will not look right since there is no branded website/email.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

 

[BrandPlease]

Here is the Link the language of the regulations, it's important to understand them. But it's important to understand:

It is legal in the U.S. to send an unsolicited commercial email.

You do, however, have to comply certain rules when sending those unsolicited emails, and if you don’t, the penalties can be very serious.

Read here:
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business

 

[BrandPlease]

To help you find targeted people, with targeted email addresses, to make an outbound to.
Get the chrome add on hunter.io, or similar, it will change your "sales life".

Have to honest @Ostrados , using a company's web contact form is about the least effective ways to make a professional business contact. Really, it just looks unprofessional on top of being ineffective.

Contacting a decision maker, with a relevant, personalized, valuable, & engaging message - is where to start.

Good Luck all.

 

[pb]

Here is the Link the language of the regulations, it's important to understand them. But it's important to understand:

It is legal in the U.S. to send an unsolicited commercial email.

But it's not really about some arbitrary definitions and rules, is it? It's more about whether the recipient will flag the message as spam or not. And this in turn, IMO, boils down to: whether the recipient finds the e-mail useful to him. Nothing more nothing less.

Based on your previous examples, I always flag inbound "investment advisor" calls as spam. Why? The "investment advisor" is in no way beneficiary to me. And it's not *really* targeted at me. It's just a "we noticed you got money, would you like to spend it" targeting. Spam to the bone.

I never flag "registrar mails" (or other shop mails) as spam but I often unsubscribe (but I flag them if the unsub button doesn't work - it happens). Why? If I'm a domain investor and actively register at a given registrar, I might be interested in the newest promos. But if I have a domain or two, or just an empty account - why would they bother me with their marketing e-mails?

On to domain outbounds. They are a mixed bag, but mostly spam (and to be frank, gmail puts most of them in spam automatically). Again, it all boils down to whether the mail is useful to the recipient. Some examples from my book (from the receiver's perspective):

* I have keyword.net and you would like to discuss the sale of keyword.com - NOT SPAM
* I have keyword.com and you want to sell me keyword.xyz - SPAM
* I have keyword.com and you have keywords.com - 50/50, if it's a brand, then it's probably spam; if it's a product domain and I'm in the respective field, then pretty much not spam.
* I have keywordx.com and you want to sell me xkeyword.com - SPAM
* I have KeyWord.com and you want to sell me WordKey.com - SPAM
* I have Keyword1-Keyword2.com and you have Keyword1Keyword2.com - NOT SPAM
* I'm in the field X and you have a strong generic domain from that field - usually NOT SPAM
* I'm in the field X and you have a random handreg domain from that field - usually SPAM

etc. etc., I'm sure it's obvious what I mean. Basically, before sending the mail, consider if the domain you offer is and upgrade to the recipient's current domain? If so, hardly anybody will flag it as spam. Is it a "parallel" domain (such as singular vs plural, or a strong generic domain)? Then it's unlikely to get flagged as spam. Is it a "sightly related" or a "long tail" domain? Pretty sure it will be trashed and possibly flagged as spam.

IMO

 

[Ostrados]

@DnameAgame
If you use service like Sendgrid or Mailgun they say clearly that you should only send to emails that you collected yourself and that customers should agree on receiving commercial emails from you (opt in) before you can send promotional emails to them. That's the whole purpose of the "unsubscribe" link that is obligatory in marketing emails. If the customer didn't subscribe in first place then it makes no point to put unsubscribe link.

You can still do outbound without subscriptions, if you are not a company then nobody will care, however your email will be quickly blacklisted.

 

[lock]

marketrz.com is a huge email list that you can word search and target.

 

[dirk]

Here is the Link the language of the regulations, it's important to understand them. But it's important to understand:

It is legal in the U.S. to send an unsolicited commercial email.

You do, however, have to comply certain rules when sending those unsolicited emails, and if you don’t, the penalties can be very serious.

Read here:
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business

Agreed. Not all spam is illegal and not all illegal emails are spam. Doesn't change the fact that cold targeting by email is concidered to be spam, like you said. Not necessarily a legal term.

As for the legal side. Thing is, hardly anybody gets it right. 99.999% of outbound templates and approaches towards outbound you'll find here advocated on NP do not follow CAN-SPAM. It's ridiculous. And that's just covering the US. The EU leaves little to no room for cold marketing at all.

Doesn't take away from the fact that's it an effective way of selling and as long as you don't get caught... Easy money.

 

[Optimal Names]

Anyone doing email outbound: Can you describe what solution you use?

Until now I haven't tackled outbound (much), but about to.

Right now, we have our own email servers (had them for a decade), but we aren't doing email marketing at all, just normal office communication and everything is inbound. So we've able to maintain perfect deliverability in such a situation. Once a couple years we get in some blacklist by accident but we fix that quick.

However, doing outbound offers is different.

I'm sure people will flag some emails as spam. I've been thinking of using a gmail or whatever free email address BUT this will not look right since there is no branded website/email.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

I would LOVE to do outbound but I am so worried about getting labeled a spammer. However, there IS great reason to do outbound marketing in not just domains but all areas of business.

I think the key is to get people to opt-IN to your list and then you email those who agreed to receive communications from you. You need to offer them something first, then you gently communicate with them every so often. This seems to work if you're selling sneakers or leather goods or vacation homes or Excel tips..... you can blast an email out to 1000 on your opt-in list easily and promote the product or service your're selling. With domains its a bit more targeted.

That is the point where I cant seem to cross... How to create an homogeneous opt-in list for your domains AND hope these folks are end-users looking to purchase a domain name too.

Here is a good article about email marketing that I recently read:
https://financesonline.com/email-marketing-statistics/

Here is a top-10 list of email marketing services available right now:
https://hostingfacts.com/best-email-marketing-services/

Let us know how you do!

 

[BrandPlease]

Use a professional - real domain email address - make sure you set up:

"SPF allows email senders to define which IP addresses are allowed to send mail for a particular domain, while DKIM provides an encryption key and digital signature that verifies that an email message was not forged or altered.

When these email authentication methods are properly implemented, you will be one step closer to improving your email deliverability and sending secure emails that drive revenue for your business"

Check out: .https://www.sparkpost.com/blog/understanding-spf-and-dkim/