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Organizing Your Mailing Lists For Your Email Promotions With all the safelists and different methods for using them, it can get hectic trying to come up with a good way to post to them. Most of all, it is important to remember if you did post to them. With a little forethought, you can set up a mailing system that will mail out your daily mailing in no time at all. Aureate Group Mailer is a very common tool used today for mailing. All references will be for that program, but the methods used can be adapted to any mailing program. We tend to look at the lists as having 4 types. Below is our break down of these types and how we post to them. LIST TYPES 1.Web based CGI You have no choice really but to put all these types of lists in a bookmark folder. You might name these: "SL Daily", "Monday mailing" etc., grouping each folder by when you can mail. Also putting the actual day for posting is better than putting 3 X a week etc.That way you don't have to think when the third day was; just mail on the day listed. We give this method our highest ranking for being safe to mail to because you're mailing from the list owner's site and the scripts, in most cases, won't allow you to double post on the same day. Also, you don't mail directly to the individual address. 2.Web based email lists of individual addresses The most time consuming and unsafe to use is the list of individual addresses you copy from websites or email . We say unsafe, because it is our belief that when you are mailing to a direct address, it is easier to forget disclaimers, putting you at greater risk of reaching people on a bad day who may have forgotten they were on the list in the first place, and who do not know how to check their mail properties to track where and why your mail came to them. It is really simple for them to click "FORWARD" and send a spam complaint. THAT they CAN do! We use Aureate Group Mailer for this list type, and make a group for each list. Modify each group to reflect the disclaimer the list host provides, and mark the name of the list as to when it can be sent. When you import the updated lists, Aureate will automatically remove duplicates, but will leave the addresses that have been removed, so always delete the old list before importing the new one. This is an example of our list setup in Group Mail. It includes all the types of lists:
I need to mention that you must update your type 2 list each time you send it out, or you are tempting fate. People drop off the list all the time. Just because a list has had 250 members for 3 days, does not mean it's the same 250 people. When someone asks to be removed, they expect to happen in 24 hrs. If you don't update, you can easily spam someone. 3. List Servers These are lists hosted on a private server that has a list server program installed on it. Many hosting companies offer it with their hosting package. Look to see if they supply the disclaimer to the ads you send to that list. If they do, then you can group the lists in one group divided only by the email account you subscribed to the list with. Since you must use the same address you subscribed with, group according to that address. If they don't supply the disclaimer,then create each list in its own group, according to the disclaimer. Note: It does matter if the list owner says no disclaimer is needed. If they don't append one to your post, then you must add one. Always give a reader of your ad the choice to opt out of the list. ALWAYS! 4. Optin Groups - The Big 4 Separate these types of lists from the others because you want to make sure to include a disclaimer on top. Use address merge in the the disclaimer and send by individual send, because merge won't work in bulk send. Also, divide them by email account subscribed to. Accurate and efficient mailing benefits you enormously in two ways: First, you are saving time by setting up a system that makes it easy for you to remember what to mail next and to whom. Most importantly, however, is that it aids you in making a minimum of mistakes, thereby reducing your chances of offending a reader with perceived spam. As we all know by now, it is not your intent that defines spam, rather the reader's perception. Hope this can be of use to you.....
This article was posted on February 4, 2002
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