I am trying to work with a piece of software called MaxBulk Mailer. I’ve just downloaded it, because I need mail management software now that I have just set up a server exclusively for our mail. I’ve blogged many times before about how our host has complained about how many aol complaints they get from our email marketing. The solution is a dedicated server for our mail. We aren’t moving our website to our new server, because our gateway, etc, is included in the package we purchased on their server. So I’m content with this situation.

I’m trying to figure out if there are additional costs associated with MaxBulk Mailer. From what I can tell, it’s just the software price. And how to use one button subscribe and unsubscribe. This software looks pretty cool, and was suggested to me by Brian Getting..Thanks Brian! I can send versions of my email in html and text. I can customize my emails by list characteristics…ie. send it to the men on my list vs. the women. It’s pretty cool.

I also stumbled on something i’ve never heard before when looking over the MaxBulk site. There are actually Email Certification Companies! Bonded Sender https://www.bondedsender.com/ or Habeas http://www.habeas.com/ so your message will be recognized as legitimate. Has anyone heard of this? Sounds much too good to be true. And what do they charge?

One more thing I found, there’s another piece of software they make called email Verifier. I think I may need that too. I’m a little overwhelmed right now trying to get my html to work for me. I think I need the pro version…Any feedback is appreciated.

M

This is a great way to start a day. A threat from your host’s “abuse dept” saying that they are getting too many complaints about spam. I’ve blogged about my issues with my customers hitting the SPAM button when they are getting an email they subscribe to. I know that people know the kind of trouble they stir up for a site when they hit that blasted button, or maybe they do.
I get this email from the abuse department, and suddenly feel like such a criminal. They say one more complaint and my server priviledges will be suspended. So, since this is something I can’t resolve through any kind of communication with Alex who doesn’t speak English, i am going to start to host my mail on it’s own dedicated server, so that the complaints don’t matter. I have an opt out at the top of the page, and a subscribe, apparently the SPAM button is just much easier to hit than unsubscribe (to a list she already subscribed to!)
Here’s the clincher to this whole thing..they complain that they are getting more than 10 complaints a day, occasionally, but they refuse to give me the email addresses of the culprits, so I can remove them!

Enough for today! Enough complaining and frustration. I have new products to post, which is always exciting.

Goodnight

Hey there! I am researching the shopping sites and trying to figure out which ones to participate in. I’m curious if anyone reading has experience with these shopping sites. My initial reaction to this was that it costs too much. Each module I need is $100/month for miva for each site I choose to participate in, and then there’s either a per click fee and/or a transaction fee. I’m pretty sure I don’t need to purchase the miva module, but it will create more work for me to update the individual sites as I have new product. But I need to do more research to know if this is true. These are the sites I’m considering: Shop.com, Shopping.com, Amazon (very pricey, but I suspect that my demographic of women over 50 may feel more secure using an Amazon vs. some of the others), there’s also Froogle, and Ebay, too. Here’s the thing…I feel that people use these to just comparative shop, and my experience with this is that if you are paying per click, you are going to get nailed. This is why I don’t use the pay per click services outside of holiday seasons.

I’m hoping that using this service will clearly pay for itself. I also need to find out if I can start and stop this as I see fit. Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks, Michelle

I tried to sign up to use Google Analytics, and was basically informed that they are at capacity. They will let me know when I can “get in”. I’m kicking myself for not dealing with this sooner. Because I really feel like I need this right now. Isn’t that always the way? I’m curious to know how long it’s going to take to get in. Anyone know?

And playing catchup, so I apologize for dropping off of the face of the earth. Vacation was gorgeous, the weather was perfect, as it usually is in Maine in the summer. I’ve been running around and around with my server because all of a sudden, I cannot send out my daily emails to my email lists. I’m getting an error message saying the server failed with an error code. The tech support person actually told me today that I cannot send out html with pictures that have links. I said…Well, apparently I can, because I have been for almost a year now with complete success until….Today. Why is today any different? So I had to talk Lee Ann through sending out the emails to our mailing list today from her computer across town. And it seemed to work fine for her.

I can’t even troubleshoot that problem, because it doesn’t make sense.  I’ll try again tomorrow from mine and we’ll see how it goes. Maybe magically I can resume my direct mail responsibilities tomorrow. It’s these sort of mysterious issues that start my day off with a bang because I am also trying to get my kids ready for summer camps as I do all of this. Not only am I struggling with my server and trying to be professional, but I’m also struggling with my 6 year old who want to wear a cropped top to cheerleading camp because she thinks it’s cool. Agghhhh!

I’ve gained my composure, and at least my direct mail has gone out for the day. This week I am completely changing the look of my site. I have always designed all of my pages in go live, however now I am adding a Category tree to miva, instead of manually designing my gift shop pages. I am starting this in the gift shop only. And I am doing this because my site is just too big in Go Live, and it’s really not necessary. I can take a lot of the bulk out of the go live side, and start utilizing more of the miva features. I am not going to launch this until the weekend. I need to set it all up first. I’m almost there. I have at least 18 departments in my gift shop and that means I am going to stop maintaining 18 Go Live Pages, eventually, all of my departments will be in miva instead of the way I have it now.

That’s it for now. Until later..