Email Lists / Purchased Lists / Email Blasts / Bulk Email / Marketing Emails

A topic that has come up frequently recently relates to email and 'blasts' or mass mailings.

While email marketing can be powerful, it must be done well. The consequences can be dire if done poorly, including getting not only your location's email blacklisted, but impacting the entire network's email services and websites as well.

Here are a few key points to keep in mind:

1) Don't purchase, trade, exchange, or acquire Third Party Lists
This could be a list from your chamber of commerce, a paid list you purchase, a list from your trade show vendor, fishbowl, or other similar list. It doesn't matter whether the list was 'free' or not. If the contacts didn't explicitly understand they were asking to receive a marketing email, it's not OK.

Sending to these lists never ends well. Contacts who don't want to hear from you don't reply! And, then, they click that pesky 'Spam' button. Even if they don't click the button, if recipients ignore your email, it will be treated as unwanted and increase your blacklist chances.

Sending to a Third Party List can result in:
1) Your email address being blacklisted - both sending and receiving.
2) The entire Miracle Method domain being blacklisted - both sending and receiving.

2) Don't send large quantities of email through your @miraclemethod.com address
Sending large amounts of email results in your email address "spam score" going up. Once it gets high enough, your email address may be blacklisted.

3) Don't use email services to send to Third Party Lists
While Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and others are all wonderful, you cannot use these services to send to acquired lists either. They clearly state this in their terms and conditions, with some examples from one service here: https://mailchimp.com/help/examples-of-compliant-and-non-compliant-lists/

What's more, sending from these services can still result in Miracle Method being blacklisted. Email services look at your "Sent From" email address, but also any links in the message. So, if you include a link back to MiracleMethod.com or your local site, these systems are smart enough to associate our domain name with your campaign.

Only use Third Party services (or MMMS Email Marketing) to send to opted-in prospects who submitted an inquiry or gave permission to be contacted with marketing communication. You will be required to provide opt-in verification for each individual contact in your list.

4) Email services talk
These days, major email services all exchange information. Much like the MM Corporate team, generally speaking, once one service knows, they ensure all others are briefed.

In real terms, this means that "only sending to Gmail addresses" or "only to all addresses" doesn't limit any blacklist to just that domain.

5) This isn't just theoretical
Miracle Method IT has proactively caught several of these emerging situations, including several where multiple hours of email downtime was experienced, in the last 5 years.

We have been fortunate to avoid any problems in the last 6 months but to keep that up, we need your help. Don't send email to lists. Put your prospects in i360 as you acquire them so that contacts have proof of a marketing relationship. Don't use third parties to try and avoid scrutiny.

Our IT team is currently working with major email providers to tap into their reports so that in the future, we can even more quickly identify any potential unwanted email situations and contact the sending franchisee to offer training and assistance.

Additionally, CAN-SPAM laws are serious - Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $43,280 - PER EMAIL. It's important that you maintain compliance with laws regarding email marketing. This is an area where MMMS Email Marketing can help as we automatically implement various best practices.

Violating MM's policies can cause negative implications to the entire MM network….up to and including the blacklisting of all MM emails and all MM websites!

6) Miraclemethod.com Email Addresses are powerful
Emails sent from @miraclemethod.com are highly ranked and highly delivered. Generally, we are not subject to being put in spam, 'promotions', or other classifications. This exceptional delivery performance is due to our overall reputation, domain history, and other factors.

Compared to having individual domains for your email (@miraclemethodofatlantis.com) our corporate-managed email addresses have higher delivery rates, are easier for customers to remember, and have robust protections.

7) MMMS Email Marketing is a very good option
The MM Marketing Services Email Marketing program addresses many of these compliance challenges automatically. Only prospects and past customers are emailed based on your i360 data so that we can remain compliant. We also perform many technical optimizations automatically, including best-time-of-day, IP address warmup, DKIM/SPF compliance, and more. Contact Marketing if you'd like to learn more.

In Summary
MM Corporate has the right to direct and approve advertising, such as email, in order to protect the MM network from the actions of any one franchise. We aim to educate rather than enforce, but where necessary to protect the network, we will take action.

We succeed as a network, together. Email services are a great example of our strength. Help us to help you!

We are here to help - just give us a call.