B2C problems for B2B email marketers

Those with a B2B email list can tiptoe quietly past all the challenges associated with sending email to the big consumer webmail sites, particularly Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo.

Or can they?

I just checked the distribution of domains on my own B2B list. The big three account for almost 25% of the database:

Gmail: 11.9%
WLH: 4.6%
Yahoo: 7.9%

These free email address services have long shed their rough and ready image and now offer users powerful tools and advanced features.

Combined with their portability (the email address isn't zapped when you move jobs), it's no surprise to find business folk using them to get commercial email from informational websites and vendors.

So have you checked your list recently for webmail addresses?

[Update: Al Iverson offers an eyebrow-raising reminder that Yahoo alone is the machine behind thousands of innocent-looking domains that don't have the letters y-a-h-o-o in them. So your webmail percentage may be much higher than you think.]

The marketing challenges are mostly about deliverability and rendering. These resource guides may help:

Windows Live Hotmail
Yahoo! Mail
Gmail

Tags: webmail, email deliverability, windows live hotmail, yahoo mail, gmail

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