Mass emailing and purchasing email address's

[Bluey01]

Hi All

I know parts of this have been covered here but as a one man band I want to do a SINGLE mass email shot to UK business's and I have two basic questions.

1. I've seen a list from customlists.net but some reviewers say these 785,474 email addresses are just basic public records and will result in huge bounce backs, does, has anyone dealt with these people?

2. I've also read at length on this site about spam or being reported, at present I send about a 1000 cold emails a week and have not been reported, these emails come from my URL, should I set up a yahoo account and send the emails from there or are the amount of emails limited by yahoo?

I know I should enrol the services of a proper emarketing company but until sales improve there is no cash in the pot!

thanks for any advise.

Bluey01

 

[neil ecc]

Hi,
Dont know whether this helps you as i am not sure what services you provide but we provide up to date databases for the public sector (schools, Councils, NHS, HE etc) if you are keen to get further involved within any of these sectors please let me know
Thanks
Neil
www.kaltz.co.uk

 

[wecandobiz]

Where to start...

How do you know you haven't been reported? And what do you mean by "reported"? If you are mailing cold lists that are not opt in, and especially if you don't provide an opt out, then you could well be getting filed as Junk/Spam which will mean they are not getting through at best, or you are getting blacklistyed with ISPs/MSPs at wordt!

Why do you think anyone will take a spam email from a Yahoo address seriously?

What I am reading is so far away from good practice in email marketing it makes me despair.

 

[Bluey01]

... well I always have an opt out, the information is relevant and to Ltd companies. I always unsubscribe if asked and bounce back rate quite low.
I also offer free advice as part of my offer which i'm often taken up on which
start a conversation.

The yahoo question was whether Yahoo would have a problem with me sending 10's of 1000's of emails for a few weeks?

As mentioned I have no money for using a company for this so excuse me if my approach makes you despair. I was just after some advise regarding the data company and whether I should use yahoo.

 

[wecandobiz]

... well I always have an opt out, the information is relevant and to Ltd companies. I always unsubscribe if asked and bounce back rate quite low.

It doesn't matter how relevant YOU think it is, if you are mailing people without permission then it's spam.

On the basis of what you said I can almost guarantee you are contravening regulations. They don't sound opt in; and my guess is you probably aren't including your postal address and company number, as you are meant to. All of these things will be raising flags with ISPs/MSPs, whose job is to stop spam by looking out for just the sorts of things you are doing.

And what do you think happens to those folks who don't want to have to contact you to unsubscribe? I am guessing you have no way of knowing who hits the Junk/Spam button, which gives ISPs further evidence still that you are mailing illegimately.

Why is it some people think that rules don't apply to them somehow...? It's not as if you don't know what you are doing! You actually started the thread asking whether you could use Yahoo or whether they'd object to you junking their reputation as well as yours!

You want advice?

STOP SPAMMING!

 

[Bluey01]

... your making an awful lot of assumptions in that last post wecandobiz, especially regarding my address and co. number which is untrue.

You have contradicted your 'definition' or spam in previous posts you have given 'advice' too.

If you were to enter a forum in my industry as an amateur and I started ranting at your post when you were just after some genuine help then you would be accused of being condescending, infact searching your previous posts and 'advice' given it seems to be your specialty!

So why don't you go away and rant at someone else, and let people who know the answers regarding yahoo or customlists.net reply.

 

[wecandobiz]

... your making an awful lot of assumptions in that last post wecandobiz, especially regarding my address and co. number which is untrue.

You have contradicted your 'definition' or spam in previous posts you have given 'advice' too.

If you were to enter a forum in my industry as an amateur and I started ranting at your post when you were just after some genuine help then you would be accused of being condescending, infact searching your previous posts and 'advice' given it seems to be your specialty!

So why don't you go away and rant at someone else, and let people who know the answers regarding yahoo or customlists.net reply.

And if YOU don't like what you get back, then perhaps don't ask for advice from people who specialise in email marketing.

I'll leave you to it. It's your reputation on the line, not mine.

 

[Bluey01]

really well done

 

[davidjgoss87]

@bluey01 please see my answers below, and bear in mind I am trying to help.

Don't waste your time and money with lists obtained from elsewhere (like customlists.net you mentioned). Even if those people did opt in to have their email addresses distributed (highly unlikely) your response rate will be zero.

Mass email should only be sent to people who have subscribed to have email from you - not just because of the legal and moral reasons, but because that's what works. If you want to do the email equivalent of cold calling, there's nothing wrong with that (I have become clients of companies that have cold called and cold emailed me) but you can't do it with mass email. You may not like the tone @wecandobiz uses, but he's right - that is spam, no question.

Instead, try this approach: Write the email as a sales pitch, sort of like this:

Dear XXX

I would like to introduce my product XXX which specialises in XXX....

Regards

John Smith
Founder & Director

Find companies who might benefit from your product and send them this email, from your email address, but obviously tailor it a little depending on who you are sending it to. Maybe try a follow-up phone call a week later if you get no reply. It will take more time and reach fewer people, but the point is that it will be the right people.

On the Yahoo question, if you try to mass email they will disable your account.

 

[robertt]

Make sure it is opt in or true B2B or you could get sued

I am currently taking one action and helping on another.

I also know of a few who have won.

It does happen !

 

[Bluey01]

Hi David

Thankyou for the reply. I do tend to write them with as a sales letter with the offer of free advice or consultation, very low sell etc. Always have opt out and al our company details. I've won a lot of my business through them over the years. Without blowing my trumpet to much I am better than most of my competitors as I also work for them, i'm also cheaper but i'll leave all that to the emails.

Interesting about yahoo, i'll have to dig around and see how many a week is acceptable for a month or so, as mentioned I only want to do a one off campaign as busy working on the day to day business.

Robertt- yes always b2b, i'll add an opt in to a newsletter or similar. thanks for the heads up.

thanks Bluey01