Just give it up already

I have a mail system totally separate from my inbox to use when I’m testing signup forms. Some of them are client, some of them are vendors my clients are thinking about using. In any case, it’s mail I’m seriously concerned won’t stop just by me opting out of it.
The server hosting that mail system has been flakey lately, and needs to be hard power cycled to make it come back. We had a major power glitch this morning and so ended up down at the colo and power cycled that box while we were there.
This box was last working February 4th. It’s been off the internet for almost 2 months now. It wasn’t answering on port 25. It was dead. No mail here. And, yet, a bunch of legitimate email marketers are still attempting to send those addresses mail.
Really. Dead for 2 months and the senders keep trying to mail to those addresses. The server came back about 2 1/2 hours ago. I already have 6 emails from two different senders.
Seriously. If you can’t deliver a mail to someone for TWO MONTHS just give it up already. I am sad that even companies that get the best advice I can give them still can’t get the simple things right.
And, really, don’t argue “but it came back! Clearly we should keep trying!” Yes, it came back. But in all the years I’ve had this disposable email system I have not opened a single image. I’ve not purchased a single thing. I’ve never shown any sign of life on any of those addresses. The mailserver has been down for months at a time. There is no value to continuing to send mail to those addresses. And, yet, people still do it.
Why? WHY!?

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Conversational foreplay

How do you approach the first contact with a potential customer or prospect? Do you just jump right in and start making your pitch or do you actually take the time to introduce yourself and your company?
Most good sales reps spend a little time socializing with prospects before they launch into the sales process, particularly when they are cold calling the target. This courtesy doesn’t seem to apply when cold emailing a prospect, though.
I can only imagine how Al might have reacted differently if Douglas Karr had sent a personal contact and introduced himself instead of sending out bulk mail. I know for a fact I would have reacted very differently to the email sent to my LinkedIn account address had it been even vaguely personalized and interested in me.
We even have ESPs getting into the sending cold email game. A reasonably well know ESP added me to their mailing list and sent me an advertisement for a free service they’re providing at Marketing Sherpa this year. I was grumbling about spam to a group of friends, one of whom happens to be their delivery guy. He asked for a copy and spent time chasing down how they got the address.
Evidently I sent mail to the privacy manager who left the company over 2 years ago. That puts me in the “prospect” database. Well, OK, maybe. But there are some many better ways to reactivate a prospect than just adding me to their newsletter. Would it really have taken so much work to send me a personal note from the sales person? It doesn’t have to be very long, just introducing the sales person and telling me they’d seen my inquiry about product and asking if they could talk to me about their offerings.
Had this ESP spent a little time to cultivate me, my response would have been totally different. I could have referred customers to them and given them the name of the sales person that was so helpful and respectful of me and my time. That’s not what they did. In a fit of insouciance they just grabbed a 2+ year old email address and added it to their mailing list. They didn’t bother to tell me why or introduce it to me gently.
Seriously, folks, email is about relationships. Adding someone to a mailing list without their knowledge or permission is a really, really bad way to start a relationship. Show a little respect to your prospects. Send welcome messages, even an automated one, before adding just discovered prospect addresses to mailing lists.

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AOL transmitting 4xx error for user unknown

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This is something broken at AOL’s end, and the guys with the magic fingers that keep the system running are working to fix it. Right now there doesn’t seem to be an ETA on a fix, though.
Even if you are a sender who is able to stop the retries, you may see some congestion and delays when sending to AOL for the time being. Senders who don’t get the message, or who are unable to stop their MTAs from retrying 4xx mail will continue to attempt delivery of these messages until their servers time out. This may cause congestion for everyone and a noticeable  slowdown on the AOL MTAs.
AOL blog post on the issue
HT: Annalivia

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Nothing is forever, even email

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