Unsolicited Bulk Email
Here are the definitions of a few spam related terms:
Definitions
Acquaintance SPAM: Unsolicited email sent to people that had previous contact with you as a business operator: old customers, subscribers to one of your newsletters etc.
Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE): is an email sent to large numbers of recipients without their knowledge or consent, often advertising commercial products or services. It is the electronic equivalent of paper junk mail.
Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE): is any commercial electronic mail message sent, often in bulk, to a consumer without the consumer’s prior request or consent. The low cost of sending UCE distinguish it from other forms of unsolicited marketing.
Junk Email :Apart from UBE/UCE, junk email can also be an automatically-sent message by someone’s virus-infected computer that has your address in the contact list. UBE and UCE can also be considered junk email.
Spam: Every email in the previous cathegories.
How do spammers get email addresses
Spammers have several ways of acquiring a person’s e-mail address. Once they have it, they can start inundating you with unwelcome mail.
- From web pages. Spammers have programs which spider through web pages, looking for email addresses, e.g. email addresses contained in “mail to”.
- From posts to UseNet. There are programs that just look at articles headers which contain email address while other programs look at signatures, through programs that take everything that contain a “@” character.
- From mailing lists. Regularly the spammers attempt to get the lists of subscribers to mailing lists, knowing that the majority of e-mail addresses are valid.
- From different web forms. There are sites that request various details via forms. Spammers can get email addresses from these form because the form becomes available on the Internet.
- From chat rooms. Many spammers collect e-mail addresses from different chat rooms, knowing that those are “live” addresses and send spam to those email addresses.
- Buying lists from others.
- From messages you sent privately to friends if they forward your note to a large group.
These resulting lists of addresses are often collected by list merchants (typically spammers) who then sell the lists to other spammers.
How can you reduce the amount of UBE?
- Avoid to use your e-mail address in the header of postings made to news groups.
- Avoid to post your real email address in a public forum.
- Avoid to put your real email address on a web page.
- Avoid to type your email address in on-line registration forms.
- Never reply to a spam message.
- Remove yourself from on-line directories that keep lists of Internet user’s names and email addresses.
Email Marketing Software Features
Several important features that should be available in e-marketing software products are:
Personalization
Personalization is one of the most important features of a quality email marketing software package. It ensures better open and click-thru rates. Some more advanced email marketing software, offers “if-then” personalization for users who want to get the maximum personalization, which many consider important to maintain exceptional customer relationships.
Web Based vs. Computer Based
Generally the email marketing software have to be downloaded on your computer in order to use them. The main inconvenience is that you have to use the same computer each time you want to send your newsletter.
Integration with existing applications and databases
To be most effective, your email marketing software should offer you the ability to import data from existing applications and databases like SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, Access and Excel. Also, it is very useful that it can be integrated with popular email clients like MS Outlook.
Automatic Subscribe and Unsubscribe Option
People need to be able to opt-in (subscribe) to your newsletter Double opt-in is recommended. That means you ask them to confirm their subscription via email.
Multi-threaded Sending
Delivers several messages at the same time, rather than one after the other. It is definitely worth getting if you have big lists.
Database Query
This option allows you to apply various filters to your data base. You can select the persons of a certain age, or location for a specific emailing campaign.
Bounceback Management
The email software must manage bouncebacks automatically, detecting whether the addresses don’t work because a permanent or temporary problem, and deciding when to remove them from the list.
Email Tracking Software
An important features of a bulk email marketing software is to track the persons who actually open your email, the ones who click through or the ones who forward it to somebody else.
Duplicate removal
It is important, especially in programs that import data from elsewhere. Most have this feature.
Listserver functions
This software are included in some programs. These check incoming mail from specified POP e-mail boxes, and handle subs and bounced e-mails automatically.
Autoresponders
Scan incoming e-mail for keywords in the subject line or the body, and then send out pre-written messages based on those keywords.
Email Client Software
There are many different email clients and services. Some are web-based, some are stand-alone graphics-based, and some are text-based.There are three major types of email clients:
Web-based
- Hotmail
- Yahoo! Mail
- Gmail
Stand-alone graphics-based
- Outlook and Outlook Express
- Thunderbird
- Mulberry
- Eudora
- Pegasus
Text-based
- Pine
With an email client you can:
- Compose new emails
- Download received emails on you computer
- See received messages in a list.
- Send attachments with the message
- Download received attachments
How do email clients work?
Email clients help you send and receive email. Also you need an email server that the client connects to. An email server has a list with email accounts that can receive emails on that specific server.
So, for sending and receiving email, you need:
- an email client which is a software installed on your computer;
- a SMTP server that uses port 25 and is responsible with outgoing e-mail
- a POP server or an IMAP server (they are responsible with incoming email), and use port 110 and port 143 respectively.
Best Email Client Software
Microsoft Outlook - is Microsoft’s email client, and is included with the Microsoft Office suite. It is designed to operate as an independent personal information manager, as an Internet mail client, or in conjunction with the Microsoft Exchange Server for group scheduling, email, and task management. It manages email, calendars, contacts, tasks, to-do lists, and documents or files on the hard drive. Outlook helps you communicate through email, phone support, and group scheduling capabilities. Outlook also helps you share information by means of public folders, forms, and Internet connectivity.
Outlook Express - is one of the most popular e-mail programs used world-wide. It comes free with all Windows and Macintosh operating systems now. Outlook Express is very easy to use, with a simple yet appealing interface, and allows users to send and receive e-mail as well as newsgroup messages. Unfortunately, since Outlook Express is the most widely used e-mail client it is also targeted for viruses a lot more than other e-mail clients. Be careful when opening e-mail messages in Outlook Express, as virus code can be executed very easily.
Thunderbird - is an email client from Mozilla. Thunderbird can run on Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000 and XP, as well as Linux, MacOS X, OS/2 and Solaris. Features: IMAP/POP support, has built-in spell checking, integrated news reader and advanced spam filters.
Eudora - is one of the most powerful e-mail clients on the Internet. It supports multiple e-mail accounts, plug-ins, drag-and-drop capabilities, and mail filtering. You can use the software free of charge with advertisements coming up regularly.
Pegasus - is an e-mail client that runs on computers using Microsoft Windows: by client, we mean that it interacts directly with the user, allowing mail to be sent, read, filed, printed and otherwise manipulated through a graphical interface.
Becky- is an email client developed by RimArts, a Japanese company. It supports POP3 and IMAP, and seems to have a number of very satisfied users. Becky is free for 30 days.
Pine - is a text-based email client that originated on Unix systems, but is now also available for Windows. You’ll need a fair degree of technical expertise to install this software.