Monthly Archive for November, 2009

Page 2 of 2

How to Import Contacts from CSV into SendBlaster

Published on November 12, 2009 in Sendblaster and Tips & tricks. 0 Comments Tags: csv, gmail, import contacts, msn live, outlook, Sendblaster, yahoo.

SendBlaster makes it easy to import your mailing list email addresses and contacts. In this post we’ll explain how to do it. Easy and Hassle-free guaranteed!

Step 1. Exporting your contacts from your mail account into CSV file format.
To import your contacts into SendBlaster you need to export a .csv/.txt file (one record, on each row, fields separated by comma, semicolon or tab) from your mail account, and then import it into SendBlaster.

From MSN Hotmail / Live:

Login to your account and go to Contact list.
Click Manage and Export.
Enter the CAPTCHA code and click Export
You will get a CSV file downloaded which has all your contacts.

From Yahoo!:

Open Yahoo! webmail in you browser
Switch to classic view
Go to Import/Export section
Click on Export Now button near Microsoft Outlook label
This will open a new popup window asking for file save on your hard disk.
Hit Save File.

From Gmail:

Login to your Gmail account
Click on Contacts at the left side
Scroll down and click on Export
Select the contacts you want to export
Select the file format – Outlook’s CSV format
Hit Export Button: this will open a new window asking you either to open or save the file.
Hit Save File.

Continue reading ‘How to Import Contacts from CSV into SendBlaster’

Using Links in Your HTML Emails

Published on November 6, 2009 in Tips & tricks. 0 Comments Tags: links.

When designing your HTML email you should keep your eye on links included in the message. A recent study found emails with 25 or more links had an open rate 12% higher than those containing fewer than 25 links, and a click-through rate 29% higher than for e-mails with fewer than 25 links (eMarketer.com).
If you want (or need) to send out a message that includes so many links, first you should organize them. One good idea is to categorize links into different types of actions. For example in “Company information”, “Product information” and “Calls to action” (e.g. Register now!). This analysis will allow you to ensure your emails have the right balance of activity. Then you should remember some best practices.
Here are a couple of key points to consider when using links in HTML emails:

Make sure any links in your message work! Broken links might irritate your readers and make you look not professional.
Don’t link directly to files (e.g. pdfs, word, etc). Link to a web page and then link to a pdf, but not to a pdf directly
Eliminate unneeded elements, such as links to other resources, navigation bars, etc. Keep you readers focused on completing the desired action.

Continue reading ‘Using Links in Your HTML Emails’

What Is Your Email Reputation?

Published on November 2, 2009 in Tools. 1 Comment Tags: deliverability, ip reputation, isp, smtp.

A good habit to follow before sending your bulk email is to look up the IP reputation of your SMTP service.
IP reputation is the major contributor to delivery rates, especially if you are sending to the largest ISP’s, e.g. Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail. Statistics show that 83% of the time, sender reputation is the real cause of filtering: by monitoring it you will be able to identify problems affecting your sender reputation, determine the causes, and fix them.

Here are some of the major metrics ISPs look at when managing the message sent into their system:
- volume of emails (illegitimate bulk mail do normally trigger spam filters)
- spamtraps hits (old inboxes that ISPs reactivate specifically to trap spammers )
- invalid address rates (hard bounces)
- complaints rates (how often recipients hit the “report spam” button to response to your message)

The good news is that there are some online services that let you check your IP reputation. We recommend these four Free ones:

Continue reading ‘What Is Your Email Reputation?’