E-mail Newsletter Campaigns

The problem with sending e-mail blasts through your ISP

Do you have a list of e-mail contacts that you need to send a recurring newsletter or e-mail blast to? You may have tried sending out an e-mail blast to your "group" in one mass sending session, only to find that your ISP, or web hosting company had blocked you, for exceeding their limit on how many recipients you were permitted to send to within a certain period of time, or at one time.

While you may have felt you were doing nothing wrong in trying to contact all of your friends or business contacts, your ISP may have thought you were a spammer, sending out a test run to test their defenses. Most ISP's have had to deal with customers who either knowingly, or unknowingly are sending out unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE), also known as "spam." Virtually all ISP's and web hosts have explicit rules forbidding members from sending out unsolicited commercial e-mails, and sometimes any commercial e-mail at all.

The reason that most ISP's place a rate limit on outgoing e-mail is because of the hundreds of thousands of personal computers that are compromised by hackers who take them over for use in what are known as "Botnets," for use a spam relays (also known as Zombie computers). The spammers do this to conceal the real source of the spam runs, shielding themselves from the authorities, but leaving the hapless citizens open to prosecution for violating the US Can-Spam Act, or termination of their Internet service accounts. When ever these Zombie computers receive coded instructions from their "Bot Master" they dutifully send out spam blasts to thousands of unwilling recipients, who are listed in the instructions they receive. The ISP owners cannot allow this to happen unabated, so they place limits on your outgoing e-mail server.

The Solution:
Create, Manage and Send Opt-In E-mail Newsletter Campaigns

The only viable solution to getting your legitimate newsletters or e-mail blasts out to the people who really want to receive them is to use a commercial e-mail service, and to run a managed opt-in list. The e-mailer will be setup to handle subscription opt-in confirmations and unsubscribe requests and will attach the proper legalize to each message, keeping you out of trouble with the law.

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to a well-respected commercial e-mail (and snail-mail) broker; VerticalResponse, Inc.

Who is VerticalResponse?

• VerticalResponse, Inc. is the leading provider of self-service and customized direct marketing solutions, empowering small and medium sized businesses to build, control and measure their own direct marketing campaigns.
• Build, send and track e-mail campaigns in minutes with VerticalResponse. No contracts, no hosting fees, no monthly fees, no support fees. You only pay for e-mail delivery . . . about a penny per e-mail.
• VerticalResponse offers an easy-to-use web-based tool that gets you up and running with opt-in e-mail campaigns in minutes - and gets your e-mail delivered.
• With VerticalResponse, it's easy to send professionally designed, attention getting e-mails and then watch as the results roll in. VerticalResponse handles it all - and that includes technical support!
• It's risk-free. Pay nothing until you launch your e-mail campaign. Try it now for free!

VerticalResponse has created iBuilder, the easy-to-use web-based tool that gets you up and running with opt-in e-mail campaigns in minutes!

• FREE OPT-IN TOOL -- Get new subscribers by creating a sign-up form using our wizard. With just a few simple steps, create your form and visitors who sign up are automatically added to your e-mail list.
• E-MAILS CREATED IN MINUTES -- Easily create an e-mail campaign in just a few minutes: Choose a template from over 50 that we offer, type in your copy, select your lists and schedule the mailing. If you have your own creative simply copy and paste in your HTML and iBuilder builds your e-mail so it's ready for launch.
• MANAGE YOUR LISTS -- Add and manage members by entering a member's information directly or by uploading an existing list.
• SEE WHO RESPONDS IN REAL TIME! -- See responses from your campaign in real time. See WHO is clicking links, opening e-mail, bouncing or unsubscribing. Then download that information to put back in your database or do follow up campaigns to your responders.
• SUPERB DELIVERABILITY -- VerticalResponse has developed relationships with the major ISP's to ensure that your e-mail gets accepted and delivered to your recipient.
• BE ANTI-SPAM COMPLIANT — Don't worry about spam! We Help to quickly ensure compliance by adding your company name and postal address to each campaign; we provide unsubscribe links and avoid deceptive header information and more.

VerticalResponse has very reasonable rates, on a sliding schedule, varying with the volume purchased, ranging from $7.50 to $15.00 per thousand messages sent. You can pay as you go for your actual volume (at the rate for your quantity), or prepay for your total anticipated annual or semi-annual volume (at a lower rate per 1000), debiting your account for each newsletter blast.

To take a tour, read the FAQs, or sign up for an account or free trial, go to VerticalResponse.com, where you can create and send your e-mail newsletters within minutes.