February 2002

Email Technique
Why use a list management company?
by Tom Antion

Because you're crazy not to or you just have way too much time on your hands. 

A list management company specializes in handling all the mundane and complex functions of maintaining a large email address list.

Why are you crazy if you don't use a list management company? 

• You will have to handle all the subscribers one at a time by hand.
  

• You will have to handle all the "normal" unsubscribers by hand
  

• You will have to handle all the idiot psycho maniacs by hand.
  

• To comply to present day double opt in standards you will have to send a confirmation email to each person subscribing and track whether they return it or not.
  

• If you choose to send a welcome letter (it's a good idea) to subscribers you will have to do it by hand after they have returned the confirmation email which you had to track by hand (whew! I'm getting tired).
  

• If you choose to offer free ebooks, reports, etc as incentives to sign up (also a good idea) you will have to do it by hand one at a time.
  

• If you want to keep track of undeliverable emails, you will have to count them up by hand.
  

• You will have to deal with people bitching to be removed because they signed up under one email address and ask you to remove a different one.

The list goes on and on.

That's why you'd be crazy to do this yourself. Do you know how I know?

Because I didn't know any better when I first started and I had to do all the above and more. It's no wonder I didn't have enough time to get my other work done.

Once I started using a list management company all the above tasks (except for dealing with people too stupid to unsubscribe themselves) was taken care of automatically by the list management company.

Subscribers could sign up themselves, unsubscribe themselves, get their confirmation and welcome emails automatically and also get two free reports automatically.

If I want to know how many undeliverables I have, I simply press a button and there's the answer. It even breaks it down for me into different domains like hotmail and yahoo so I can see which one of those major services is doing the worst. Right now Hotmail is the worst with Yahoo running a close 2nd.

As soon as I switched to a list management company I had many more hours per week to actually market. With a list of any size at all it would be impossible to do all the above functions.

Ok I know there are software programs that will do much of what I outlined above, but are they a good idea?

I don't think so unless you are really technically savvy because there is a tremendously steep learning curve . . . not just in learning the software, but in making the entire project work so that your emails get delivered.

This involves locating bulk email friendly ISPs etc, etc. etc.

Another reason it's a good idea to use a large and credible list management firm is because they carry enough clout to get the attention of the Hotmails, Yahoos and AOLs of the world.

What does that mean?

Let me give you some inside scoop. Companies like Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL and other ISPs routinely dump email. Will they openly admit this? No, not exactly, but I have plenty of experience with all of them. 
They'll claim they are simply filtering potential junk mail. Well that "junk mail" could be the Ezine legitimately requested by your subscriber. They won't tell you how the filters are set which makes sense because real spammers could then beat the system easier.

The real reason, in my opinion, is to cut down total amounts of incoming mail to make things cheaper and easier for them. They figure, "So what if you don't get all your Hotmail mail. It's a free account anyway so too bad."

A large list management company can get a meeting with AOL officials, Yahoo and if lightening strikes Hotmail officials and make deals that you can't.

If the list management company has strict controls against spamming and enforces them, AOL could be persuaded to open the door to email coming from them.

It's doubtful that you'll ever have this kind of clout by yourself.

None of this means that all your mail will get through. In peak periods it could get dumped "accidentally on purpose" or purely accidentally or many free email users let their boxes fill up causing the rest of their email to bounce.

This is another feature of a good list management company. You can set the number of times you try to deliver to a certain address before the list deletes the name for you (this is called pruning).

You wouldn't want to drop an address after only once bounce. Their server could just be down momentarily or the subscriber's mail box might be full because they are on vacation. 

BACKUP
A reputable list management company will keep your list nice and secure. No one else will have access to your subscribers. They also back up their computers regularly.

WARNING: This does not relieve you of the responsibility of downloading your list regularly and backing it up yourself to a floppy disc, CD, zip drive etc.. Keep at least one copy of the backup out of your office in case of fire or other disaster. Remember -- that list is just like gold bullion to your company.

HOW MUCH DOES THIS COST?
You'll be happily surprised that this kind of service starts at less than $20.00 / month depending on the size of your list and the level of service you require. I pay $299.00 / month now with a list of about 117,000 which is pretty cheap when you consider this list has brought in close to a million dollars in sales.

If you want to do HTML email, or if you get a smart service that adjusts automatically between HTML, plain text and AOL depending on what the subscriber chooses, that will cost you quite a bit more.

Don't be crazy. Use a list management company right from the start.

I use the standard version of http://www.postmastergeneral.com/?affiliate=antion 


Upcoming topics for this section:

• Email strategy

• HTML email

• Smart Email

• Plain Text Email 

• Link tricks

• Getting subscribers fast

• Getting content fast

• How to make money with your zine

• How to gain clout with your zine

• How to maximize the signups on your website

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