Let’s say you are a service bureau or service firm and you are printing your client’s bills. You want to break into the email industry because now every channel is converting into a digital one. You are already printing the bills so how hard can it be to deliver this PDF, that you have been processing and printing for years, through a digital platform? Just upload the PDF and email addresses to an email service provider every month and that is it, right?
It sounds easier said than done. Google searches are filled with: Why emails bounce back? Why emails are not coming in? Why I am getting blocked by Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo? And even worse: Why can’t I send emails anymore?
Email reputation works the same as our reputation works in society. The big servers, that are in charge of executing the sending of emails are in charge of knowing who is not opening your email, what is spam and what kind of words you are using. All of this information is kept as a record associated with your IP address. So, before getting your email to the other party, the server checks your history first. Whether your IP address has too many bounce backs (emails not getting to the person) or if it is already in the blocked list, aka “the black list”. These last two happened because you did not clean your lists (delete or update bad emails) or the people you are sending the emails to have not opened the last 4 emails you sent. The bounces give you the key to knowing whether you have a healthy list or not and whether you will be successful in your upcoming email blasts.
Thousands of spam emails are sent every day. The big servers are in charge of going through this based on IP records and content of emails. Words like free, exclamations points and other characters are recognized and flagged by the Internet Service Providers (ISP) that those are spam emails. In other cases, is just that you sent too many emails one day in contrast with your normal email routine. The servers get suspicious so they block you or restrict the flow of your email blast to stretch it over many days. (Pro tip: you have to warm up before you can work out.)
Breaking into this industry has many barriers and 2 of them are knowledge and technology. The holy grail of email is “Never buy an email list, always build your email list” but what if I am sending bills, how does this apply to me as a service provider? It does not because you already have a list so your task at hand is managing that list. This is the key to success.
Now, the back-end processes are going to be your best ally here to deliver emails safely and with a lower margin of error whether you are developing the technology yourself or buying it from a software company. First you need an actual product so a SaaS email platform for creating, sending, storing, tracking emails and reporting. This is because just like The ISP’s you also need to keep track of your email activity and how is being received by your clients. The other one is a feature that will make your entry to the industry easier. This feature is something you need to aim for when looking for an email service provider which is knowledge, training, support, hardware platforms, keeping up and running 24 hours 7 days a year. This is all joined in a dashboard and a workflow system for easy viewing of your email jobs.
The Alchem-e™ platform allows you to have all these features in one place. That way all information can be monitored, broadcasted and executed in a dashboard, providing you with a single source of truth. The Alchem-e™ support team is constantly keeping track of past and present activity as well as forecasting future activity based on your needs.
Channels have come a long way since the dominant choice for business communications was a piece of paper. Now digital choices exceed traditional hardcopy for viewing bank information, paying bills, and even buying a house. This forces you to be sophisticated in every aspect of what you do regarding customer communications. We recommend when getting into high-volume email delivery to get an integral service and work with experts. You want tech that not only sends emails but provides the ancillary abilities to manage data, email templates, personalization, security, document archiving and viewing, PURLs, and the team behind it that knows how to maximize your email success while keeping you out of ISP email jail.
Schedule a demo with our team to learn more about Alchem-e’s email solutions here.
