Do Business Well

A further aspect of list management is bounce management. While all e-mail broadcast tools will have some capability to deal with replies, they will differ in the wide variation of replies or bounces from different receiving mail servers in different languages. Bounces or returned e-mails are particularly important for large lists, since a large volume of replies can be generated from out-of-office autoreplies, particularly in holiday periods. Hidden amongst these will be genuine replies that may include feedback or requests for further information, so a method is needed to sift the wheat from the chaff and forward these replies to someone who can respond appropriately.

Since there are many different message codes and bounce replies, it makes sense to have a tool that can readily identify messages that are of value. One of the best-known options, and particularly useful if you are broadcasting from an internal package, is b*Bounce (www.bbounce.com). This identifies over 3000 different types of bounces (including international types), which it groups into the following types:

• Hard — the mail server could not send the e-mail; the most common example of a hard bounce is if the user doesn’t exist on that domain, which usually indicates a mis-typed e-mail address
• Soft — the mail server is temporarily unable to accept your e-mail; this usually happens when the user’s mailbox is full, or if the mail server cannot be reached
• Blocked — recipients’ mail server is blocking you from sending e-mail to them
• Temporary — the mail server is temporarily unable to transfer your e-mail
• Auto reply — an e-mail auto-generated from the recipient, usually indicating that the recipient is out of town or out of the office for the time being
• Subscribe — indicates that somebody is wanting to subscribe to your list
• Unsubscribe — indicates that somebody is wanting to unsubscribe from your list
• Challenge response — the recipient subscribes to an e-mail service whose aim is to eliminate all unauthorized e-mails; the challenge response system works by requiring human intervention in order for e-mails to reach the intended recipient
• MDN — the message is a Message Disposition Notification, commonly known as a `read receipt’
• Generic — the system is unable to detect what type of bounce the message was.

To simplify the range of responses required, most e-mail broadcasting systems use a system based on rules such as this:

• Ensure failed message/hard bounce is a true problem. If mail server sends a hard bounce reply, either re-send after an interval of, say, one day, or re-broadcast to the address when a campaign is next run. Since there is a wider variety of mail servers and different problems can befall them, it is not safe to assume that a hard bounce means the person has left the company or suspended the mail account.
• Ensure messages that fail due to transient errors get through. If the mail server receives a temporary failure message, then the message can be retried over the next few days until it gets through.
• Ensure replies get through to a customer service/sales person. Review all messages that have not failed against out-of-office style messages to identify the ones that are genuine replies.

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
Managing the Email Marketing List Part 2

• E-mail Marketing, Affiliate, Because Size Matters
• Where to run for help? Email Marketing, Web Hosting Providers
• Internet Marketing, as the voice of all customer communication, Ecommerce the power of Networking
• Categorizing Internet Direct Marketing Players continue...
• Managing the Email Marketing List Part 1
• Banner Ads and Ad Networks Aid Online Website
• Networking Ecommerce: Listening to and Hearing from your Customers
• Web Designing the Online Customer Data Model part 3
• Consolidation and Integration of Web Service Offerings, direct email marketing continue...
• Part Science, Part Art— and Online Market¬ing Programs Guided by Strategy
• Web Designing the Online Customer Data Model

4 Comments »