Maple Street Mail

The Deliverability Problem, an Authenticated Solution

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:39:20 +0000

Today I got an email that is all too common:

I work for ABCo, Inc. and we have occasional deliverability issues with our monthly email newsletter. Currently, we use XYZ which just provides us with a unique IP address and double opt-in form. But we still get blocked by Yahoo and AOL every once in awhile. Then we fill out the online forms and they unblock us, etc. Do you offer some kind of service that could help us with this?

Getting whitelisted again from AOL has turned into a full-time job, and a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies, and yes, once I felt your pain.

There’s a good long answer to your problem, and I think we can help. But it is a long answer, with probably too much information at one go, so if at any point in this email you feel like tuning out or putting it on the bedside table, feel free!

WARNING: BORING BUT IMPORTANT TECHNICAL REASONS!

In your case specifically, it’s not enough to just do best practices anymore. And it’s nice to have a unique IP, but if it’s not authenticated regularly with ISPs, there’s the problem. That’s primarily how I got into that end of the business – a lot of the creative we were dropping had weird deliverability issues, and since we’ve been working on this platform for the last 2 years, it allows us the benefits of tools and a secure infrastructure with redundant data centers dedicated to just delivering authenticated emails.

The big difference between us and where you’ve been having problems is that we’re taking advantage of the major authentication standards (SPF, Sender ID and DomainKeys/DKIM). Sender ID is for Windows Live Mail and AOL, DomainKeys/DKIM is for Yahoo and Gmail.

All the large ISP’s are using email authentication as an important layer in their spam fighting arsenal. By setting up this system as an authenticated sender, you can instantly bypass certain filters, giving your campaigns a better chance of arriving in the destination inbox. Not only that, but many ISP’s like Yahoo! and Hotmail will flag your email as authenticated, which helps to build trust between you and your subscribers and improves the chances of your emails being opened.

We offer not only the ability to create custom template, update and get reports, but also test the designs and content against the most popular spam filters:

Norton AntiSpam
McAfee SpamKiller
Microsoft Outlook 2003
McAfee 2008
Norton 2008
Microsoft Outlook 2007
SpamAssassin
Postini
Brightmail
MessageLabs

NOT SO BORING CREATIVE/MARKETING DETAILS:

At the end of the day, the deliverability issues may be also due to simple things like:

HTML/image ratios
Day campaign was sent
Keyword scoring
Placement of unsubscribe and preference center

I’ll give you a call this afternoon, so if you have any other thoughts and information, let me know. Also, if you have a time that’s good to meet/coffee on Wednesday or Thursday, let me know.

In the meantime, I hope that helps!

Easy Updates In Under 7 Minutes

admin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 04:40:46 +0000

Here’s a quick demo of the powerful editor, which didn’t even include my favorite feature: click and drag to reorder blocks of content after you edit them!

Still, here’s the basics of updating content with Maple Street Mail in under 7 minutes:

logging in
starting a new campaign
editing content
uploading images
previewing
testing
sending

What Is Permission?

admin — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:26:38 +0000

In communications, email marketing, and marketing in general, permission became a fuzzy word open to interpretation. That is, the interpretation on the part of the sender and that of the recipient. However, since the passage of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, there are guidelines that make it clearer for you. Let’s get into some specific scenarios so it’s clear what Maple Street Mail considers permission:

The Type of Permission You MUST Have

You can only email subscribers using Maple Street Mail if you obtained their permission in any of the following ways:

They opted in via your website
They completed an offline form and indicated they wanted to be emailed
They gave you their business card
They purchased something off you in the last 2 years

Scenarios That DON’T Equate to Permission

You obtained the email addresses from a third party
You scraped or “copy and pasted” the addresses from the Internet
You haven’t emailed that address for more than 2 years

The Type of Permission You MUST Have

You can only email subscribers using Maple Street Mail if you obtained their permission in any of the following ways:

They opted in via your website

They completed an offline form and indicated they wanted to be emailed

They gave you their business card

They purchased something off you in the last 2 years

Scenarios That DON’T Equate to Permission

You obtained the email addresses from a third party

You scraped or “copy and pasted” the addresses from the Internet

You haven’t emailed that address for more than 2 years

A Great Case: Tatango

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:48:53 +0000

In under a year, this mobile social media startup was taking the country by storm. Andrew Dumont, VP of Marketing for Tatango, Inc., knew that a custom branded email was another key component in communicating with their users about new features, promotions, tips and tricks. In the first three months using Maple Street Mail, they managed to retain users longer and almost triple their membership numbers. They also enhanced their overall social media strategy by linking to blog posts, profiles and online video content.

A Great Case: Studio 910

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:01:26 +0000

It was fine to promote offers and new products in a newsletter, but Jenna Nymyer wanted to do more with email. When this Fairhaven salon used get referrals, they were hand-recording and sending printed postcards with a $5 coupon on the referrer’s next visit.

They couldn’t track the results, and it went against their credo to be a low-impact, environmentally-friendly salon. But, sending a targeted email increased appointments by 18%.

It was fine to promote offers and new products in a newsletter, but Jenna Nymyer, the manager of Studio 910 Salon, wanted to do more with email. When this Fairhaven salon used get referrals, they were hand-recording and sending printed postcards with a $5 coupon on the referrer’s next visit.

They couldn’t track the results of what they mailed, and it went against their credo of being a sustainable, low-impact, environmentally-friendly salon. But, sending a targeted email increased appointments by 18%. All at a fraction of the cost of their mailers. One of the first campaigns they sent as a test accidently went to their entire list, but as the mea culpa announcement went out, the prevailing feedback was a surprising “Wow, I didn’t even know you had a referral program”. Now they do!

Get Reports

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:42:07 +0000

Great looking reports that let you measure the effectiveness of every campaign you send. Go beyond opens and link clicks, and measure your campaign-related sales, conversions and ROI with our Google Analytics integration. We even show you what email clients your subscribers are using.

Campaign Snapshot

See how your email campaign has performed at a glance. Find out how many recipients opened your email, clicked a link, unsubscribed, forwarded your email to a friend and loads more.

Link Activity

The Link Activity Report makes it very easy to see what your subscribers found most interesting, as well as who clicked and who did not.

Compare Campaigns

Easily compare any of your email campaigns with each other. Is your open rate improving? Are you seeing less bounces over time?

Simple Email Building

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:39:22 +0000

Your agency or in-house designers get to do what they’re good at: build great designs! You can import your custom HTML and CSS with a single click and use our integrated testing tools to make sure they look great in all email programs. Finally, you can send your own campaigns based on your designs! Don’t have a designer? Let us know, and we can find one!

Do Your Own Edits

Our email builder makes creating a slick looking email within reach. After selecting the template to use, simply click on the parts of the email you’d like to update and start typing. As you type, we’ll show you a preview of exactly how the email looks. Move blocks of content, too!

Express Yourself

Your designers can create your email designs and then import them into your account with the click of a mouse. We don’t impose any design restrictions, other than industry best practices, and you won’t find any ugly “powered by” logos. We hate that stuff! What you do get is all your campaign images hosted and a perpetual email archive at no additional cost.

Test Your Custom Designs

See screenshots of exactly how your email will look in more than 20 of the most popular email clients like Outlook 2007, Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, Lotus Notes and many more.

Manage Lists & Subscribers

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:12:00 +0000

We take all the pain out of list management by handling the messy stuff like bounces and unsubscribes automatically. Whether you’ve got a small list, or need to get your hands dirty with segmenting and personalization, we’ve got you covered.

Never Touch a Spreadsheet Again

Maple Street Mail automatically handles all new signups, unsubscribes, bounces and even spam complaints for you behind the scenes. Keep on the right side of spam laws without having to think about it. Being “legal” isn’t enough: see our definition of spam.

Customize the Signup and Unsubscribe Process for Every List

You can create as many different lists as you need for yourself and your clients. You only need to pay when sending a campaign, so list management is free. And it always should be.

Target Groups of Subscribers and Make It Personal

You can easily extend your lists to capture anything and everything about your subscribers; whether it’s address, phone number or fave lipstick. Not only that, but you can easily personalize your emails with any of the custom data you’ve captured.