Introduction to E-Mail List Handling (Listserver) Software

The first e-mail software you get acquainted with is the e-mail program that comes with your Internet connection and Web browser -- AOL, Outlook Express, or Netscape Communicator. You may advance to a more powerful program such as Microsoft Outlook 98/2000/2002 or Eudora 5. But essentially these programs are designed for reading and sorting the e-mail that comes to you and for sending single e-mails to individuals.

What is a Listserver?

When you send e-mail to a number of individuals at the same time, however, you need special e-mail list handling software, known as a listserver. Yes, it is possible to stuff e-mail addresses into the BCC field with your regular e-mail program and send e-mails to a number of people at a time. But maintaining this kind of list gets very tedious, since you must manually remove bad or changed e-mail addresses that can be 20% of your list per year or higher.

Listservers, on the other hand, are not designed for one-sies and two-sies, but for lists of 50 or 100, 1000 or 100,000 and more. They make quick work of the drudgery of list maintenance and include features that make handling thousands of e-mails fairly easy. In this article, I'll try to acquaint you with the features and terminology you'll run across when shopping for a listserver.

Two Categories of Listservers

Listservers come into two major categories: desktop and ASP models.

Desktop listservers install on your desktop PC and access various customer or e-mail databases that you have developed. The better ones are able to connect to any ODBC-compatible database (such as MS Access, FoxPro, FileMaker Pro, etc.) and don't demand that you reformat your database just for its benefit. These databases might be on your hard disk, on your company's network, or even a database hosted on your website (though maintaining that kind of ODBC connection is more iffy). When it comes time to send out-going e-mail, a desktop listserver uses your Internet connection -- dial-up, DSL, ISDN, T1 -- whatever you have available. Examples of desktop listservers include Gammadyne Mailer (www.gammadyne.com/mmail), Corey Rudl's Mailloop (www.marketingtips.com/mailloop), MessageMedia MailKing (www.mailking.com), and many others.

ASP (Application Service Provider) Listservers are software programs hosted online by companies that specialize in sending e-mails and handle many e-mailing functions for you. Your database is hosted on their server and you access it using a Web interface. It is usually possible to upload to and download from this database, but the database itself resides on the ASP's server. You can make corrections to a subscriber's e-mail address using the Web interface. When it comes time to send out e-mails, they are distributed extremely rapidly through the specialized hardware and large Internet pipelines owned by the ASP. Examples include SparkList's adaptation of Lyris (www.sparklist.com), MessageMedia UnityMail (www.unitymail.com), PMG (formerly Postmaster General www.postmastergeneral.com), EmailFactory (www.emailfactory.com), Yahoo! Groups (www.yahoogroups.com), and many others.

Of course, there are a few applications that defy exact classification. While most people use listservers such as Lyris as a hosted ASP through providers like SparkList, larger companies can purchase a license to host Lyris on their own in-house server. Now it isn't exactly a desktop program, but neither is being hosted by an ASP.

HTML and Text Messages

Most of the current crop of listservers are able to send HTML e-mail messages, text e-mail messages, or a combination of the two (called multi-part MIME) where the recipient's e-mail program determines whether the text or HTML part of the message is seen. (I believe it is important to send the text portion of the multi-part MIME before the HTML portion so that recipients with text-only e-mail programs don't see the HTML gobbledy-gook at the front of the message.)

Discussion vs. Announcement Lists

Businesses most often use listservers to send out newsletters or standalone e-mails which advertise their products and services -- called an "announcement" or one-way list. But listservers can be configured as discussion lists, too. These allow for e-mail conversations between members that allow for rapid learning and a strong sense of community. Read my article on "Introduction to E-Mail Discussion Lists" (www.wilsonweb.com/wmt7/lserver_discussion.htm) for details.

Subscription Handling

As I alluded to above, manually maintaining a large list can be a time-consuming and daunting task, since e-mail addresses change so often and people are coming and going. Listservers have done a pretty good job of automating the task of subscribing or joining an e-mail list. Most allow people to subscribe by sending an e-mail to a "subscribe" address. Others require you to go to a website to subscribe directly and give some demographic information in the process. Either way, automating this function saves lots of time and increases accuracy.

Listservers are often weaker, however, in allowing list members to easily change an e-mail address or unsubscribe. While these functions are possible by e-mail, they can be complicated. I've found that it's been worth my efforts to automate changing e-mail addresses by setting up a form on my site that takes information from my subscribers and then automatically sends e-mails to the Lyris listserver that executes the changes. (You can see my online subscription change center at www.wilsonweb.com/change)

Most listservers allow you to write the text for e-mail messages that are sent to new subscribers (welcome message) as well as those who unsubscribe (good-bye message). The welcome message lets new subscribers learn about your list and gives them a way to unsubscribe if they were subscribed by a "friend" who didn't consult them. The good-bye message is a friendly way to say adios to departing members and encourage them to return.

Recently, I've noticed I was getting a lot of people unsubscribing and wondered why. Was it something wrong with the newsletter? Here's the good-bye message I now send:

Dear subscriber,

I'm sorry that you've unsubscribed from Doctor Ebiz, though I understand the need for prioritizing the e-mail you get. I have to do that, too.

(If you were just changing your e-mail address, please ignore this.)

I am constantly seeking to improve Doctor Ebiz to meet the needs of my readers. Would you take just a moment to help me learn from you? Please e-mail me and let me know the main reason you unsubscribed and perhaps some suggestion that might help me improve. mailto:myemail@domain.com?subject=Feedback_on_Doctor_Ebiz

Thanks so much,

God bless you,
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

Most people don't give any feedback at all when they receive this message. But I am guessing that about 10% do, giving me a sampling of the reasons for their unsubscription. After I started this, I began to feel better. Instead of saying "I hate your newsletter," most relayed reasons such as changing jobs, being overwhelmed with e-mail, etc. But this keeps me in touch with unsubscribers and anything that may be troubling them. Notice that the mailto e-mail address includes a subject which most e-mail programs will recognize. This way I can easily filter this feedback into the proper folder in my own e-mail system for future reference.

Subscription Confirmation

Most listservers these days allow you immediately subscribe a person or delay the subscription until the person replies to a confirmation e-mail. This procedure is called "double opt-in" since you receive the subscriber's choice twice -- when they initiate a subscription and when they confirm the subscription by returning an e-mail. It is possible, as you well know, for someone else to subscribe you to a newsletter. That can't happen with a double opt-in system unless you return the confirmation e-mail.

Some lists, especially commercial opt-in lists, swear by a double opt-in system. I don't use one for my lists, however, since that confirmation e-mail can cut by 30% or so the number of subscribers, often because the subscriber is confused by what to do with the confirmation e-mail. (Yes, people who don't read are often confused.) To cut down on people subscribing their friends, I specifically ask them on my subscription form not to subscribe their friends. Also in my welcome message I give them an e-mail address that gets them off the list at once in case they were subscribed against their will.

Bounce Handling

One of the most timesaving functions of a listserver is handling bounces, or returned e-mails. Bounces fall into two groups:

Hard bounces are "fatal" errors that indicate you've lost the subscriber for good. These include "user not found" or "host not found" messages. Listservers usually unsubscribe hard bounces automatically.

Soft bounces are less severe. They include "on vacation" and "out of the office" messages, as well as "the user's e-mail box is full" and the like. The better listservers will continue to send to soft bounces several times until it becomes clear that e-mail just isn't getting through at all. Then they may be unsubscribed or "held" to try again later.

Let me give you an idea of how important bounce handling can be. When I switched my large Web Marketing Today list from Majordomo (a vintage listserver) to Lyris (a modern listserver), I went from having 6,000 bounces in my inbox to about 150 -- a huge difference! Lyris handled everything else without consulting me, and I was happy not to be consulted.

Bounce handling keeps your list clean, so you aren't repeatedly sending out undeliverable e-mails. Advertisers appreciate realistic list subscriber numbers.

Multi-Threading

Better listservers send out e-mails quickly using multi-threaded connections to the Internet. Instead of sending out one e-mail after another, one at a time, a multi-threaded listserver will send out several e-mail threads at a time, as fast as your mail server can handle them. I was able to cut my e-mailing time by two-thirds for one newsletter I publish from my desktop using multi-threading in Gammadyne Mailer. While this is especially important with desktop listservers where you watch the e-mailing go out, be aware that hosted ASP listservers are set up to "blast" out e-mails with incredible speed using multi-threading and other techniques along with fast and wide Internet "pipes" or connections.

Address in the To: Field

Many listservers, but not all, allow you to put the recipient's e-mail address in the To field. Cheaper, spam e-mailers, on the other hand, typically stuff 40 to 50 e-mail addresses in the BCC field, and use phony e-mail addresses for the To and From fields. Other legitimate listservers by default put the name of the list visible in the To field.

I strongly urge legitimate, permission-based e-mail marketers to make sure the recipient's e-mail address is in the To field. I've found a wonderful and fast way to get rid of 90% of spam -- delete any e-mail that isn't sent directly to my e-mail address. If it isn't sent to me, I won't read it. I'm now getting more than 200 spam e-mails per day (up from 100 a couple of months ago), and this method enables me to survive. (To see how you can sort e-mail by the To field, see the "Bulk Deleting" section of my recent article "How I Keep Up with the Deluge of E-Mail." www.wilsonweb.com/wmt6/email_deluge.htm)

E-Mail Merge

The better listservers allow you to merge fields from your database into the messages you are sending your customers or subscribers. Let's say that your database includes such fields as FirstName, LastName, Organization, Customer_Number, and Last_Order_Date. You can use e-mail merge to send a customized message that reads:

Dear Tom,

It's been 35 days since we've received an order from Overland Stage Limited. Why don't you click on this link. We've filled out your repeat order form for you. All we need is your approval. How about it, Tom?

I know that's kind of hokey, but even so, people respond to personalized messages MUCH better than they do to stock messages sent to "Dear Friend." With Gammadyne Mailer I would set up the message as follows:

Dear [[FirstName]],

It's been [[date_days_between(Last_Order_Date, #1/7/02#)]] days since we've received an order from [[Organization]]. Why don't you click on this link (Here is an HTML link that includes Customer_Number and takes the customer to an order form ready to go.) We've filled out your repeat order form for you. All we need is your approval. How about it, [[FirstName]]?

Different listservers will have varying field identifiers, such as %% or a single bracket. Some listservers don't e-mail merge at all, or only in a limited way. For the standard Lyris server, you can personalize with first name or full name, but only if you've collected the subscribers name when they subscribed.

E-mail merge is very powerful, but it takes careful testing to get everything right before sending out your final e-mails. Most listservers that allow e-mail merge will let you send out test e-mails until you are satisfied that you've fixed all your errors.

One of the most effective ways to use personalization is in the subject line. Most people DO open e-mail that has their first name in the subject line.

Generally, you can set up an e-mail merge to send only database entries with a date later than 6/30/01 or whatever criteria you set. If you can't set criteria carefully enough in the listserver, some database programs, such as MS Access, allow you to set up "queries" that include specific subsections of the database, sorted however you desire.

Conditional Blocks

Have you mastered e-mail merge? The next level of difficulty is to use conditional blocks. Let's say you are sending an e-mailing to your entire customer list, but want to offer a special to those who have purchased more than $350 in the past year. Some listservers allow you to insert blocks of text conditionally. The listserver will read each record in the database and then respond according to what it sees in the Sales_YTD field:

If Sales_YTD > 350
Then insert TextBlock #1
Else skip insertion

Only top-of-the-line listservers offer this feature, but you can see how powerful it can be if you have a well-developed database.

Link Tracking

Another advanced feature found only in a few hosted ASP listservers is link tracking. Each link in an HTML e-mail message can be coded to include the subscriber's customer number. Also, links can be set up to go first to a redirect script and then to the target URL. Thus when a subscriber clicks on any link in the message, the customer-number-coded URL first hits the redirect script and then the customer is redirected to the target URL. In the meantime, the listserver has recorded the customer number AND counted the click-through. An increasing number of listservers can count click-throughs for you, but the best ones will also give you a list of customer names and e-mails that have clicked through. SparkList's Lyris has an add-on feature called "ClickThru Tracking" that lists e-mail addresses of list members that clicked on a particular link. Potentially, this list could append to the main database a particular customer's interest in the product type they clicked on. You can see the possibilities.

Reporting

Finally, listservers can report on their activity, sometimes after a particular e-mail campaign or perhaps at the end of the month. These are some of the items you may find on reports:

• Number of current subscribers
• Number and e-mail addresses of new subscribers
• Number and e-mail addresses of unsubscribes
• Number of subscriptions per day
• Number of e-mails sent per campaign or per day or per month
• Elapsed time for the sending of your e-mail message (and subsequent resendings to busy or unavailable mailservers)
• E-mails opened (which only tells you which HTML e-mails were looked at while the recipient was still online)

I hope that this article helps you as you shop for your next listserver. Now you know what features you'll need to bring the greatest results from your e-mail marketing.