We sent out a newsletter to our clients Monday of this week using our new system. The web application we are using is excellent as it provides real-time information on how well the newsletter is received. Once the newsletter leaves our system, we can track;

1. Who opens the email.
2. How many times they opened the mail.
3. What links they clicked on and how many times.
4. If they forwarded it to a friend.
5. What email client they are using to read the mail (see below).

As you can see, from an Irish perspective anyway, that the Microsoft Outlook family (Outlook 200,2003, 2007 & Outlook Express)  is a clear front runner with business users with a massive 78% of the email client market. The system also provides a complete array of different and interesting statistics including; bounce rates, unsubscribe information, if your recipient marked you as spam, and much more.

You can view our newsletter here.

I made a rare phone call today!!I actually phoned my Hosting Providers to ask why there was a VAST reduction in spam! We had received calls from clients asking us why they were receiving less mails than usual.

The fact is, that the majority of users out there know that their mail server is working fine, when they can check their junk mail folder to find that they received a spam mail in the last 10 minutes. Believe it or not, it can be useful!

So I called the data centre and stated “I’m not complaining, but did you do anything to our Server?”, They responded with an honest “No” and unless a Spotty, 17 year-old King-of-Spam was suddenly arrested somewhere in Arkansas, there doesn’t seem to be any explanation as to why this has occurred.

I’m not asking Google or browsing the web to see if anything has happened ‘out there’ as It may only backup my hunch that this is only a short-term vacation from spam.

And I am certainly not phoning the Hosting Company again only to find out that they had mistakenly given free anti-spam protection and will turn it off straight away!

In this situation, perhaps ignorance is spam bliss..

Personally I cannot understand why medium to large sized Irish companies continue to use Eircom, Indigo, Gmail, etc email addresses. For that matter, I rarely understand why anyone starting a business would give this a seconds thought.

Read the rest of this entry »

For companies that need a real Newsletter Solution there are many options, each with their own benefits and shortcomings and as always, varying price tags.

An Irish website I came across from a submission to Gimmedat.ie was http://www.toddle.ie . This website provides a novel way to setup a Newletter Marketing Campaign in a matter of minutes. They have several professional templates to choose from and they offer a pay-as-you-go pricing structure which is fairly straightforward.

Other solutions which are well worth a look include; Read the rest of this entry »