Any good suggestion to Email Marketing?

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by apphame, Nov 8, 2011.

  1. apphame

    apphame Well-Known Member

    Mar 14, 2011
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    Hong Kong
    I've spent about $7,000 on Benchmark to send newsletter to the subscribers of our multiple products. But it ended up with high rate of Abuse Complaints.

    Now Benchmark want to terminate the contract between us, claming that we have affected their other customers seriously. Their IPs were even blacklisted.

    Can this be true? We used only less than half of what we paid for.

    Another thing I can't understand is that our users have confirmed the subscription already previously, so why did they report us? :confused:
     
  2. psj3809

    psj3809 Moderator

    Jan 13, 2011
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    #2 psj3809, Nov 8, 2011
    Last edited: Nov 8, 2011
    Surely you can talk to the company so they can show you actual evidence of what they mean. Yes if i signed up to an email list i wouldnt then report it later, must be something else. They cant terminate your contact without showing actual evidence/issues ?

    I'm not keen on email subscriptions, dont get me wrong a lot seem okay but the second i sign up for 'some' i suddenly seem to get much more junkmail, perhaps this company doesnt but other email marketing companies seem to share details around. Nowadays i only sign up to stuff using a throwaway hotmail account or something.
     
  3. ImStrapped

    ImStrapped Well-Known Member

    Mar 1, 2011
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    Each co. works approx. the same. You must have 10 or less "reported as spam" users per 1,000 emails. If it's more than that, it begins to raise flags and so they must take certain precaution.

    I would suggest looking into Constant Contact. Much cheaper, easier to work with.
     
  4. I would want to look at those emails. I've done email marketing for 4 companies now and have never received the overwhelmingly negative feedback that you describe.

    Some possible reasons why this may have occured:
    • Sending emails significantly more frequently than before
    • Sending emails that are 100% advertising in nature
    • Sending emails with spammy titles or content
    • Not providing a clear unsubscribe option

    I would go over the email campaign with your provider and figure out if they violated any of those things. Also, talk to your disgruntled customers and ask them what they think.

    Good luck!
     
  5. PixelEnvision

    PixelEnvision Well-Known Member

    Jun 8, 2011
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    Brighton, UK
    Check out http://mailchimp.com/

    I have used both self hosted (interspire) and 3rd party solutions, chimp is the best one...

    Regarding the complaints, what is the time frame between initial subscription and the email? If it's too much (3+ months) that might cause the spam complaints...
     
  6. Astraware

    Astraware Well-Known Member

    Jan 22, 2010
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    Another vote for Mailchimp. You import your own opt-in mailing list. You have full access to reporting once it's sent so you can see exactly who unsubscribed and why, you can see bounces, open rates, click rates etc. It's a very complete solution and it's easy to use. Additionally, if you're not sending regular emails every month, so you don't want a monthly subscription, they have a PAYG option where you buy a load of credits and just use them as you need them.
     
  7. zcake

    zcake New Member

    Oct 14, 2011
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    Wow, that's a lot of money. I would expect great detail about the problems before I would accept that.

    As far as marketing, I find that many of my friends will sign up for newsletters from stores and such and then refer to their emails as spam. To many people, spam is anything that asks them to buy something directly or blatantly advertises to them. It sucks but it seems the only way of getting around it is to make yourself well known before you start asking for a sale. Of course there's more to it than that but relationship building is probably a good start.
     
  8. tasos

    tasos New Member

    You can try ContactPigeon, it offers as much as Mailchimp.
     
  9. Luke Kellett

    Luke Kellett Well-Known Member

    Jun 7, 2011
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    Indie iPhone Game Developer
    Melbourne, Australia
    I see most people suggesting other sites to do your email marketing for you. But at the end of the day it's probably the content that upset people, especially considering that you say they had already subscribed to your list.

    What was the content of the email?
     
  10. daigamer

    daigamer Well-Known Member

    Oct 30, 2011
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    Wow there seems to be so many service's that cost alot of money and dont offer results. Iam learning slowly how to create games and hope in the future there will be services I can trust.
     
  11. ImStrapped

    ImStrapped Well-Known Member

    Mar 1, 2011
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    I've personally used Constant Contact for years now on monthly basis. It works extremely well and on average, there are only about 10 spam reports per 50,000 emails sent.

    Perhaps it also depends on how you word your email, title it, etc.
     

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