It may surprise you, but e-mail is actually older than the internet. What is more, the very first e-mail systems helped to create the internet. Today, almost anyone can send an e-mail. It is a basic computer literacy skill that even a complete beginner needs to learn. This is hardly surprising, as e-mailing can now be one of the supporting tools of online marketing.
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How to use bulk e-mails
Surprisingly, although we are almost masters at sending an e-mail to one address, bulk e-mailing still gives us trouble even after years. We use mass mailing when we need to reach a larger target group. With bulk e-mails you can send newsletters, invitations, discounts or news, and best of all, you can do it professionally.
If you do not learn the difference between a useful business e-mail and spam, it is very likely that most of your carefully crafted messages will end up in the bin.
Even for professionals, sending bulk e-mails is a nightmare they would rather avoid. But nobody wants to spend long hours sending individual e-mails by hand, most of which end up forgotten anyway. So how do you send mass mailings properly?
What to avoid when using bulk e-mails
A badly written e-mail that you also send to the wrong people is close to a disaster. It is no accident that sending e-mail is called e-mail marketing, as the knowledge in this area is enough for a whole marketing field of its own. And if you do manage to make such a blunder, you might as well focus on how to regain lost self-confidence.
Do not send bulk e-mails from an e-mail client
A typical e-mail client is, for example, Outlook or Thunderbird. Shockingly, many people still use these mailboxes to send bulk business e-mails. The messages are usually sent to tens or hundreds of recipients at once in a single blind copy.
The result is fatal, because any e-mail where the recipient’s address does not match the mailbox address is flagged as suspicious and will most likely end up in spam. In extreme cases, the sender’s address may even be blocked, which causes delivery problems for ordinary e-mail communication too.
Do not send promotional bulk e-mails from a personal mailbox
This is a serious and critical mistake that, surprisingly, a large number of people still make. If you want to send your clients a newsletter, for example, do not do it from the address you use for personal purposes. The e-mails will end up in the “Bulk” folder, where ordinary users will most likely delete them.
There is no point in explaining in the subject line that this time it is not a personal message but a business e-mail. Add this option, at most, to the list of things to do when you are really bored. If you are in a hurry, set up a new e-mail address in a few minutes used only for sending promotional messages.
Do not send bulk e-mails on behalf of a third party
Mailings sent on behalf of a third party bring two important drawbacks. First, although the recipient may know the author of the e-mail’s content, they may not know the actual sender of the e-mail. As a result, they will treat the whole bulk e-mail as junk mail and delete it. They may also block the sender. Second, the so-called spam score plays a role: automated mailings sent mostly from outside the sender’s domain get a negative spam score and the e-mail is moved to the spam folder.
What rules to follow when sending bulk e-mails
If you want to become an expert in bulk e-mails, you need to learn a few rules that will help you avoid serious trouble and embarrassing situations in the future, such as sending an e-mail to people who did not want it at all.
Sending bulk e-mails to people who did not ask for them is considered unsolicited commercial communication under Act No. 480/2004 Coll., on Certain Information Society Services (zákon o některých službách informační společnosti). If you do this repeatedly, you may be investigated by the Office for Personal Data Protection (Úřad pro ochranu osobních údajů).
From a technical point of view, pay attention above all to the following four points:
- Set up a mailing list
- Put recipients in blind copy
- Always send e-mails to yourself first
- Check your links regularly
Now let us look at each point in more detail.
Set up a mailing list
Whenever possible, use a mailing list. For example, it is quite easy to set up in e-mails on the Seznam domain. You add the addresses of everyone you plan to contact as members of one list. Another method is to use Google’s application on your own domain and its Groups.
Put recipients in blind copy
A simple way to make sure bulk e-mails reach all recipients. Send them to your own address and put the list of all recipient addresses in blind copy. NEVER put the list of recipient addresses in the “To” field.
Send e-mails to yourself first
The best way to stay professional and avoid embarrassing yourself in front of clients. Send the bulk e-mail to your own address first, ideally to several of your own addresses. Check how the message looks on different domains (Seznam e-mail, Google, Centrum, Thunderbird, etc.). Even if you conclude that the mailing is fine, you may still run into unpleasant problems, for example:
- Unreadable characters = wrong text encoding
- Lines and text that are too long
- Broken formatting (if you send HTML)
Check your links regularly
Once the e-mail lands in your inbox, remember to click on all (yes, really ALL) the links. There is nothing worse than spending several hours creating, for example, a bulk e-mail with an attachment and then including a broken link.
Always check that each link works and leads where you intended. You can also check whether the reader clicked on it.
You can then focus on tips and tricks that will help you send bulk e-mails correctly to those who really want them.
Follow these three basic rules:
- Always keep contact addresses in one place. A good client database is the key to success. It is not a good idea to have e-mail addresses scattered across several places.
- Send mass mailings reliably and sensibly (do you need to know how many undelivered messages and error notices you received? This can also be set up automatically in your e-mail.)
- Follow GDPR rules. Listing recipient addresses in the copy of your e-mails is in fact a breach of the Personal Data Protection Act (zákon o ochraně osobních údajů). So make sure as few unauthorised people as possible can see the list of recipients.
Always keep your recipient database in good shape
One big mistake is ignoring e-mailing. Imagine a specific situation. You set up an online shop and study the rules of what to do. Naturally, you skip e-mailing because you have no one to send it to. You work hard, the shop takes off and you forget about e-mails completely. It takes several years before you remember, and by then your recipient database is badly out of date.
An e-mail database is a very important part of internet marketing and making money online.
Be careful when contacting clients by bulk e-mail after several years. If you send an e-mail to someone who did not want it, you risk being blocked and put on a spam list.
Every mailing list needs to be kept healthy and in good shape, which you can achieve, for example, by manually removing the addresses of clients who do not wish to be contacted, or by directing their addresses to spam. Last but not least, you can remove inactive pages and contacts that do not read your bulk e-mails.
