Delivery issues
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There are three main issues with regard to newsletter delivery: reliability, timing and consistency.
Reliability
Reliability simply means ensuring that your newsletter actually gets to its intended destinations. Those who outsource their list hosting need to be certain that the service is able to deliver. Those who do it in-house need to ensure that their own systems are working.
It's a good idea to subscribe a few test email addresses from the commonest email address services used by your readers, and then monitor these addresses to see if newsletters are being delivered.
Since subscribed addresses are stored in some form of database (in its simplest form, an address list in your email client), it's important to ensure that your test addresses are distributed evenly throughout this database. That way if the mailing process breaks down at any point in your address list, you'll still find out about it.
You therefore need to know the order in which addresses are used to send out a newsletter - are the addresses processed alphabetically, or according to the date they subscribed, for example? Then you can arrange your test email addresses accordingly, to ensure you have one at the beginning, middle and end of the delivery process.
If you're not sure in which order emails are sent, then talk to your service provider or IT guy.
Unfortunately, even if you know that your system sends out email reliably, this is still no guarantee that these emails are actually received. ISPs, company intranets and email providers have various filters and mechanisms in place to block spam, but which may also inadvertently block legitimate bulk email.
Frankly, it's impossible to know exactly who might be blocking your newsletter, but there are precautions you can take. First and foremost you need to ensure you do not fall foul of the anti-spam lobby; respect permission.
To learn about the problems with getting email delivered (and how to solve them), visit the Deliverability section here at Email Marketing Reports.
Timing
The second issue - timing - refers to the actual day and time when your newsletter arrives in subscribers' inboxes.
This can have a surprisingly important role on influence and impact. As with all things, the "right" timing depends on the nature of your publication, your objectives and your audience (or, more specifically, their reading habits).
If you haven't considered the relevance of this topic, read these words from Anne Holland of MarketingSherpa.com, writing back in October, 2001...
"I've found I can't get orders from offers in my email newsletters (to a professional audience) to save my life after about 3pm on Thursday until the following Tuesday morning.
Since I publish 5 newsletters, I keep juggling the best performing ones into that "sweet spot" of Tuesday-Thurs am. And then shove Monday and Friday editorial deadlines as close to the sweet spot as possible (i.e. publish later on Monday and earlier on Friday.)"
Imagine, for example, that you own a newsletter which includes analysis and discussion of the most recent Monday night football games. When is such a newsletter likely to have the most impact on its readers - if it's delivered Tuesday morning, or Friday night?
There are no universal guidelines on the best time for readers to get your newsletter, despite various statistics you'll see reported around the place. Base your timing on when you think your readership is most likely to have the time and inclination to read your message.
Think weekends and evenings for home audiences, weekdays (but not Friday afternoons!) for business audiences, for example. Experiment and test and see what works for your newsletter and audience.
Customer databases and split mail outs...
The issue of timing is complicated by time zones. Midday in New York is evening in London, and the middle of the night in Tokyo. Sophisticated publications with enough information about their readers can stagger their mail out geographically, so that everyone gets the mail at the most appropriate time, e.g. "Tuesday morning".
Just as marketers will segment their audience and deliver their messages accordingly, email publishers can do the same. If the right questions are asked on sign-up, then a publisher has information they can use to modify newsletter content (and promotions) according to its audience.
Incidentally, even relatively low-priced list hosting services now incorporate the ability to ask your subscribers questions on sign-up, and use this information to send out split mailings.
Consistency
The third delivery issue is consistency. Just as you expect your daily newspaper to arrive on your doormat at the same time each morning, so it is with email. People are creatures of habit. So be consistent.
There are exceptions to this rule. The longer the publication frequency, the more forgiving people will be. A monthly newsletter that arrives on the 1st one month, and the 3rd next month is not a problem.
Additionally, some newsletters are by their nature unsuited to consistent delivery timing. Think of email alerts which are triggered by special news or information. You may also want to manipulate delivery times to meet the needs of a special promotion embedded in your newsletter.
Need more email marketing guidance? Try the email newsletter.