Are you brand new to email and not sure where to start? Unfortunately, sending mass emails is actually a pretty complicated science. By definition, mass emails are created and sent to a considerably large group of recipients that may or may not be targeted to any certain demographic or group. This is, in essence like fishing (not phishing), hoping to capture as many sales leads as possible. Most of these mass emails are considered spam or unsolicited bulk email or unsolicited commercial email.
Although, by definition, mass email campaigns don’t seem like the way to go, and they may end up doing more damage than good if not executed properly. But they also do have the potential to get you amazing returns if mass email campaigns are run in a proper manner.
Fortunately, we’ve put together this guide so you can tackle the initial steps of sending mass emails with popular email sending services like Pepipost and fill you in on some of the jargon you’ll need to know when building out your email program.
- Are you sending transactional emails or marketing emails? Sending transactional emails can be considered as a part of doing business so you may not need opt-in consent. If you are sending marketing emails you will need your recipients to opt-in or your emails could be considered SPAM.
- Are you sending out immediately or scheduling a “bulk send”? Think about sending limits. Your “bulk send” amount could go over your sending limit. You must check out email finder to find the relevant emails.
- Make sure you are sending expected content. This could include the copy for your ‘password resets’ to the content of your newsletter. Newsletters should contain something that’s relevant to your audience and in line with expectations for when they signed up for your newsletter. If you said you’d send company news once a month, you shouldn’t start sending promotions once a week. That will generate spam complaints and poor deliverability. Deliverability consists of all the issues involved in getting your emails delivered to the expected recipient. Unexpected content could cause poor deliverability and block your email from being delivered.
- The next step is to set-up your sending domains. Sending domains are used to identify you as a sender, help you build a sender reputation with ISPs for better inbox placement, and allow you to send more messages on our system. If your ESP has a bad reputation and starts getting your emails into spam, your sending domain might be severely affected. That’s why you need to be very careful before choosing your email service provider.
- You will also need a Template. A template defines the body of your email. It is also the place to define where substitution data will go in your emails. Make sure your template is inbox friendly: it should be as text-heavy as possible, contain minimal images, and provide actionable and relevant CTAs and links.
- Finally, you will need is a recipient list. Recipient lists are lists of email addresses you want your emails delivered to. Again, make sure you get opt-in permission from your recipients. You should never add people to your list who have not opted-in as this can affect your deliverability.
You can also set-up an email sending service using SMTP. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is an Internet standard for electronic mail (email) transmission. This technology has been around for quite some time, but is one of the most reliable ways to send emails securely.