Bulk emailing

[wallypott]

Mine was sent to everyone had a couple of lines of text, in French and English, two photos and basically just said Happy New Year, we have had a good level of bookings for the year ahead so if you want to book get on with it and feel free to unsubscribe. Clearly it was a little more polite than that!

[Nemo]

My postscript is that I received a definite booking as a result of sending my newsletter. In fact two, as they went on to book both properties, one for themselves and one for some friends on alternate dates to those they originally enquired about. So very pleased with that result.

I will definitely do another at a later date, the only nightmare will be creating a new address list, or adding more addresses to it. I personally weeded out some I didn't want to send to and I'm not sure how to work that in terms of importing a list. I guess I need to only import after a certain date - maybe a month or so before I created my first list and then handpick out the troublesome ones!

[wallypott]

Do you use PIMS? I figure I can set the search facility to enquiries dates to since last mailing and add them using excel to my previous list as all the weeding will already have been done by mailchimp to that list

[Nemo]

Yes I do use PIMS and as I was writing my post that was exactly what I was thinking! I didn't send to all those who had enquired or just had a holiday within the last month or so prior to craeting the newsletter, but it should become apparent once I do the next export.

[wallypott]

Im glad you understood what I meant my grip of language completely deserted me in trying to explain that.

[Jimbo]

I was sufficiently impressed by this thread to give Mailchimp a closer look, but really struggled to get accredited. Their security screen kept throwing out my email address as spurious and repeatedly refused to acknowledge my password. Must have taken six goes on two browsers before I sneaked in under the fence.

So, not an auspicious start. Don't know if I would have persisted without LMH members' endorsements. Things, as T. Blair used to say, can only get better!

Jim

[e-richard]

This has to be one of the most inspiring threads on LMH for ages.

After days and days of procrastination, I sent my first mailshot last night and as Windy said:

The stats are bl**dy addictive too.

Glancing back through these pages it would seem that most of us are getting an open rate of 37% - 44% with a couple of outliers well above 50%.
In my case (38% in less than 24 hours), I only sent to non-bookers, whereas those reporting much higher figures sent to bookers or a mixture.

But, I'm trying to understand a bit more about why so many people have not opened the email ?

OK, we know that some will not even have looked at email in the past 24 hours, but that's probably a small percentage.
Of those who do check emails more frequently, do they simply see the sender/subject line and delete it or otherwise ignore?
Or, are these newsletters simply filling up Spam boxes all over the place?

Would the answers to these questions help to improve our conversion rates when responding to enquiries ?

[Nemo]

But, I'm trying to understand a bit more about why so many people have not opened the email ?

OK, we know that some will not even have looked at email in the past 24 hours, but that's probably a small percentage.
Of those who do check emails more frequently, do they simply see the sender/subject line and delete it or otherwise ignore?
Or, are these newsletters simply filling up Spam boxes all over the place?

Would the answers to these questions help to improve our conversion rates when responding to enquiries ?

Exactly the question I asked myself! A little enlightenment came when I was informed that for users like me who use Outlook, if you simply view the email without opening it up then it doesn't count as opened. If that is true then it makes sense to me, as I do not open the majority of my emails; I view, file, delete (or simply allow them to fill up my inbox ) but frequently do not need to open them in order to digest the contents.

[la vache!]

But, I'm trying to understand a bit more about why so many people have not opened the email ?

OK, we know that some will not even have looked at email in the past 24 hours, but that's probably a small percentage.
Of those who do check emails more frequently, do they simply see the sender/subject line and delete it or otherwise ignore?
Or, are these newsletters simply filling up Spam boxes all over the place?

I think quite a few must go into spam, looking at the list I of non opened emails. Or some people have changed email addresses and not forwarded their old addresses. I ended up with 66% open rate with 24% click through but I was surprised that, some people, particularly those who have booked to stay this year, were on the non open list.
Interestingly, yahoo and btinternet ISPs feature strongly in the non opened list. And one I sent to myself at my orange.fr address never got to me.

[e-richard]

Interestingly, yahoo and btinternet ISPs feature strongly in the non opened list.

I've just spotted in Reports, there is a tab marked "Advanced reports" which shows you the Opens by top 5 Domains. Unfortunately it does not show Unopened, but its a start.

[Jimbo]

But, I'm trying to understand a bit more about why so many people have not opened the email ?

It's taken me a while to work up the courage to consider an email shot because wall to wall spam (IMO) has made email shots a devalued currency and because I get so ******* exhausted weeding out the valuable stuff from the rubbish that lands in my email box. And ruthlessly terminate the majority that hasn't already been diverted into the trash box, like Arnie battling a T-1000.

So I don't have any illusions about the fate of the majority of my lovingly-crafted shots that will soon be winging their way unasked into homes and businesses around the world. Chimps - it's a tough world out there.

Jim

[e-richard]

You have a lovely way with words Jim, and I can assure you that one is not offended that many people have chosen not to read my missives. It took me no effort to send one simple message to many people.

What concerns me are those instances where technology chose not to show my message to many people.

It's this same technology that may be choosing to hide my (and your) responses to enquiries that we worry about.

[gam]

It's this same technology that may be choosing to hide my (and your) responses to enquiries that we worry about.

A worry for many businesses.

You probably already know this but I thought it worth a mention. Delivery into the intended inbox rather than disappearing into a spam bucket may be improved by using SPF (sender policy framework) functionality often offered by your web host in their email system but, in my experience, rarely used - probably because it's not widely known about.

If it's not something you know about or use then it might be worth checking whether your host offers SPF and domain keys*. If they do then chances are that they are turned off as they usually need a bit of configuration.

I can't offer any data about exactly how effective this is but I've been told that it offers significant benefits. My understanding is that SPF is taken into consideration by spam filters. If you're sending emails from an email marketing service using their servers then I'd have thought this is in place already. I'm talking about emails you send from your own domain.

Anyway, sorry if I'm teaching anyone to suck eggs

* possibly in your control panel under "Email Authentication" or similar.

[e-richard]

Very helpful, gam (as usual ), but surely you'd expect MailChimp, as specialists in this field to have taken all the right steps that you have suggested?

The more I think about this, the more I feel that the MailChimp stats are actually wildly out.

1. The technology for measuring whether an email has been opened is quite flaky. I'm sure for example that if you open but do not display images (my default in gmail), yet read it, it will not be counted as open. There may be other related reasons.

2. I just do not believe that half or more of these emails go into Spam or are deleted without viewing. The number is intuitively too high.

[gam]

surely you'd expect MailChimp, as specialists in this field to have taken all the right steps that you have suggested?

Yes I would and more. Hence why I said emails from your own domain, not email marketing services (e.g. MailChimp) who use their own servers. That said, MailChimp must get a lot of spam sent through their servers and no doubt they're constantly battling to get them whitelisted. But that's a slightly different and bigger issue.

No, I was specifically responding to your closing comment about worrying that enquirers might not get your response to their enquiry i.e. I thought you were referring to emails from your own domain not getting through because of spam filters, but maybe I misunderstood?

Good question about what technology MailChimp use to tell whether an email has been opened. I would hope they would have moved on from the old system of seeing whether an image has been loaded but who knows. Being a curious individual I might look into it and let you know if I find anything worth reporting.



Edit: That didn't take long.

How MailChimp tracking works

It would appear that they do rely on images ("web beacons") so you're absolutely right. Someone could open and read your email with images turned off and MailChimp wouldn't know

I thought they'd be using something like readnotify. It's all fraught with privacy issues though so maybe they've decided to use what's considered one of the least invasive methods (fairly useless though it is).