subject: Understanding Email Marketing Technical Problems And How You Can Solve Them [print this page] There are many ways to do Internet marketing, but e-mail marketing is perhaps
one of the most popular, although annoying, marketing methods. In e-mail
marketing, the Internet marketing team sends out a sales letter through e-
mail. This letter can be direct, or it can be an advertisement of a companys
products or services. It is also usually sent out to a mailing list of people
who are not necessarily in the companys target market, and who might not
have the time or resources to sit down and read the e-mail.
More often than not, e-mail marketing has lower returns on its corresponding
investment. People often send the e-mail to the Trash, a phenomenon that can
be avoided only with a well-worded sales letter, a good sales pitch, and
products or services that can live up to customer expectations. However,
there are also technical problems and glitches that can get in the way of
successful e-mail marketing.
Taking Care of Bouncing Emails
Have you ever received returned emails that stated errors such as Username
not found or Mailbox has exceeded its allowed limit or variations of these?
These bounced emails can be annoying, especially when you have to delete
whole batches of them, and if you have to look at each email and see who the
recipient is.
Bouncing emails are caused primarily by two things: a wrong username or a
server problem on the part of the e-mail recipient. A wrong username in your
mailing list may be easy or difficult to resolve, depending on the source of
your mailing list. If you have alternate e-mail addresses for a particular
recipient, then you can reset your software to send email to the alternate e-
mail address. On the other hand, if you have no other e-mail addresses for
the person, then you have no other choice but to scrap that person from your
mailing list.
If the error is on the part of the recipients server, then this may be
caused by one or both of two things. The server is undergoing maintenance, or
the recipients mailbox is full. If the email that you are sending is
extremely important, or if the recipient is a major customer, then you can
contact the mail provider and ask for the status on server maintenance. If
the recipients mailbox is simply full, then you may either wait, or call the
recipient and inform him or her that he or she needs to clean out his or her
mailbox.
Unblocking the Blocked Emails?
You will not be able to avoid the customer who simply has no interest in your
company, much less its products and services. Some customers will block you
from their inboxes, which is easy to do. In some online e-mail programs, a
single button will do the trick; in offline software, you will not only be
blocked, but all email addresses emanating from your domain can be blocked.
So how can you avoid the much dreaded block? Write better emails, and if you
have enough guts and good products and services to back you up, call your
customers individually. If you still cant get them to listen, you might as
well drop them from your mailing list and find new customers. Why waste your
time on unwilling clients when you can go out and find more clients who will
really listen to what you have to say and buy the products and services
that you have to offer?
When the Subscribers Start Packing Up and Leaving
Another common problem that Internet marketers face is customers who
unsubscribe in droves. Again, this is something that is difficult to control.
You can either remove the unsubscribe option and risk angering your customers;
or you can take it all in stride and use it to improve your Internet
marketing techniques.
There are many different reasons as to why people unsubscribe to a service or
email. They are not interested in buying products or services. The sales
pitch is way off, and they are turned off by the advertising scheme. They
simply do not need to buy anything from you.
Dont lose heart! You might be able to redeem yourself, so change your
marketing style and get your marketing mettle working. Unsubscribing
customers might simply signal the need for change. And sometimes, change is
all you need to make more people flock to you and earn your client some good
