What is the best time to send cold emails

What is the best time to send cold emails with MaxBulk Mailer – Are you tired of sending countless cold emails that go unanswered? It’s not about what you’re saying. It could be all about timing! Sending a cold email at the right time can make all the difference. This blog post discusses the best times to send cold emails and how to write them effectively. Plus, we’ll give some tips on getting more responses and when is the perfect time to follow up. Keep reading if you want to improve your cold emailing game!

What is the best time to send cold emails

The best time to send cold emails

Sending cold emails can be a nerve-wracking experience, but the timing of your email can make all the difference in whether or not you get a response. So when is the best time to send a cold email?

The answer largely depends on who your target audience is and what industry you’re in. For example, if you’re targeting busy executives, it’s best to avoid sending emails early in the morning when they may be swamped with meetings. Instead, consider sending them later when their inbox has had time to clear out.

On the other hand, if you’re targeting small business owners or entrepreneurs who may work from home outside of traditional business hours, try experimenting with early mornings or late evenings.

Another factor to consider is time zones. If your target audience is located across different regions and countries, it’s essential to consider their local time zone and adjust accordingly.

Ultimately, there isn’t one definitive answer for everyone on the best time to send cold emails. It takes trial and error and analyzing open rates over time to determine what works best for your audience and industry.

How to write a cold email

Writing a cold email may seem daunting, but it can effectively reach out to potential clients or customers with the right approach and structure. Here are some tips on how to write a compelling cold email:

1. Keep it short and sweet: The recipient of your email likely receives many emails daily, so make sure yours is concise and easy to read. Stick to one central point and keep your message brief.

2. Personalize your message: Address the recipient by name and show that you have researched by referencing something specific about their company or industry.

3. Focus on benefits: Instead of simply listing features or services, focus on how they can benefit the recipient’s business or personal life.

4. Include a clear call-to-action: What do you want the recipient to do after reading your email? Make sure it’s straightforward for them to take action.

5. Proofread carefully: Typos and grammatical errors can detract from the professionalism of your message, so make sure you proofread carefully before hitting send.

By following these tips, you can write a cold email that stands out in a crowded inbox and helps you achieve your goals.

The benefits of sending cold emails

Sending cold emails can seem daunting, but it can have a lot of benefits for your business. Here are some reasons why you should consider adding cold emailing to your marketing strategy:

Firstly, cold emailing allows you to reach out directly to potential customers who have never engaged with your business. This will enable you to introduce yourself and your product or service in a personalized manner.

Secondly, sending cold emails expands your reach beyond those who already know about your brand. By reaching out to new leads, you can increase awareness of your company and potentially gain new customers.

Thirdly, cold emailing is relatively inexpensive compared to other marketing tactics, such as paid advertising or social media campaigns. Crafting compelling email copy and finding relevant contacts takes time and effort.

You can build trust with potential customers over time by consistently sending thoughtful and well-crafted emails that provide value for the recipient rather than just trying to make a sale immediately. This may lead them to eventually convert into paying customers or at least refer others interested in your offer.

Incorporating cold emailing into your marketing strategy has numerous benefits that could help grow and expand your business’s customer base.

The best time to follow up on a cold email

You’ve sent a cold email but haven’t received any response yet. What should you do? Follow up on it! However, timing is crucial when following up on cold emails.

The best time to follow up on a cold email is usually within two to three days of sending the initial email. This gives the recipient enough time to read and review your message before receiving another one. Also, they’ll be more likely to respond quickly if they’re interested in what you say.

If you still don’t receive a response after your first follow-up email, wait at least a week before sending another one. Remember that people are busy with their responsibilities and may not immediately reply to or even see your messages.

When writing your follow-up email, make sure that you remind them about the previous communication and why they need to reply as soon as possible. You can also offer something new or valuable not mentioned in the original message.

In addition, use email marketing software like MaxBulk Mailer by Maxprog, which allows the scheduling of emails so that they can be sent at specific times to get maximum exposure while avoiding spam filters.

Following these guidelines increase your chances of getting responses from cold emails without being pushy or intrusive.

How to get more responses from your cold emails

Getting responses from cold emails can be a challenging task. However, there are some tips that you can apply to increase your odds of getting a response.

Firstly, personalize the email by addressing the recipient’s name and mentioning something specific about their business or industry. This shows that you have researched and are genuinely interested in their company.

Secondly, keep the email brief and straight to the point. People receive numerous emails daily, so they may not have time to read long messages. Highlight why your product or service is relevant and how it solves their problem.

Thirdly, provide value by giving them an offer or insight they cannot easily find elsewhere. This could be a free trial of your product/service or sharing valuable information about their business needs.

Fourthly, make sure your call-to-action (CTA) stands out and is clear for recipients to take action immediately after reading the email. Use action-oriented language such as “click here” or “register now.”

Test different subject lines and send times/ days until you find what works best with MaxBulk Mailer software from Maxprog. Don’t give up if you don’t get immediate responses; persistence is key!

Conclusion

Cold emails can be an effective way of reaching out to potential customers and generating new business. However, it is essential to remember the best practices when sending these types of emails.

Remember that timing is critical when it comes to sending cold emails. Do your research and find the best time and day to send them based on your target audience’s habits.

Crafting a personalized and well-written email can also increase your chances of getting a response from recipients. Utilize tools like MaxBulk Mailer or Maxprog for efficient email marketing campaigns.

Following up with prospects after sending a cold email is also crucial, but give enough time before doing so. Be persistent but not pushy.

By implementing these strategies into your cold emailing approach, you can increase the chances of success in generating leads and growing business opportunities.

Recommended reading:
How to send a winback email
How to create an email list for marketing
What is bulk email?
How to send emails to thousands of people at once?
How to track bulk email opens and clicks

How to choose the best mail server for email marketing

How To choose the best mail server for email marketing – Are you struggling to find the perfect mail server for your email marketing campaigns? Look no further! With the many options available, choosing one can be daunting. But fear not, as we’ve got you covered with this comprehensive guide on selecting the best mail server for MaxBulk Mailer. From understanding different types of servers to finding the right features and setting up your server, we’ll walk you through everything step-by-step. So buckle up and prepare to take your email marketing game to the next level!

How to choose the best mail server for email marketing

Types of mail servers

When choosing a mail server for your business needs, consider scalability, security, pricing plans, and compatibility with your existing IT infrastructure.

MaxBulk Mailer is compatible with all kinds of mail servers. You can use your Internet provider’s mail server for free if it offers one. You may also purchase a web hosting package that will provide you with web space and access to a mail server.

However, because you share the server with other users, you should be careful to keep the servers manageable. Avoid sending out vast amounts of emails quickly, or you may risk being temporarily banned or suspended.

Many mail servers have a daily or hourly delivery limit to protect themselves from bulk emailing; fortunately, MaxBulk Mailer has settings that allow you to regulate your delivery rate – Sending a message through a server with a daily or an hourly delivery limit explains how.

Therefore, being mindful and considerate when using these services is essential.

Using a free server like Gmail

Usually, MaxBulk Mailer users are tempted to use Gmail for sending their bulk email messages. That is not the best server you can use for big lists due to its limitations. The preferred solution is undoubtedly using a dedicated mail server.

Gmail is a free server, so if you need to send your message to a big list of subscribers you better avoid it. They are not suitable for large-scale bulk emailing at all.

They have extreme limitations, less than 500 messages per day, the sender address is replaced by the Gmail account address, the reply header is ignored…, and they are constantly being monitored for bulk emailing.

Gmail is fine for sending emails to small lists of engaged contacts and subscribed people who read your messages. You have to maintain your list clean and up-to-date. Any other use can be deemed abuse.

What to look for when choosing a mail server

When it comes to email marketing, selecting the correct mail server is crucial. With so many available options, it isn’t easy to decide which is best suited for your needs. Here are some key factors to consider when selecting a mail server.

First, ensure that the mail server you opt for has a high deliverability rate. The last thing you want is for your emails to end up in your subscribers’ spam folders or not get delivered.

Another essential feature to look out for is scalability. Your business may grow over time, and you need a mail server to handle increased traffic without compromising performance.

Security should also be a top priority when selecting a mail server. Look for servers with SSL/TLS encryption protocols and other security measures to protect your data from hackers and cyber threats.

Ease of use is another factor worth considering, as you want to avoid technical difficulties interrupting your email campaigns’ flow. A user-friendly interface makes navigating the system easy with minimal effort.

Check if the pricing plan suits an email campaign’s budget constraints and objectives before signing up with any provider.

By considering these factors during the selection process, finding the perfect mail server won’t feel daunting anymore!

The best mail servers for email marketing

Choosing the correct mail server is critical to the success of your email marketing campaigns. With so many options available, deciding which one is best for your needs can be difficult. To help you out, we’ve narrowed down some of the top mail servers for email marketing.

SMTP2GO is a popular choice among marketers as it allows you to send personalized messages in bulk. SMTP2GO offers reliable delivery rates and excellent customer support. It also boasts an easy-to-use interface and real-time performance analytics of your emails.

When choosing a mail server for email marketing, consider pricing plans, ease of use, deliverability rates, integrations with other tools you may use in your campaigns, and any unique features they offer tailored towards specific types of businesses or industries.

How to set up your mail server for email marketing

Setting up your mail server for email marketing is a critical step toward the success of your campaign. A properly configured mail server ensures that your emails are delivered to the intended recipients and not marked as spam or blocked altogether.

The first thing you need to do is choose a reliable email service provider with analytics features. SMTP2GO provides analytics and easy integration with various platforms.

Once you have chosen an email service provider, configure your DNS records correctly by setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication protocols. These protocols help verify the authenticity of outgoing emails from your domain.

Next, ensure your mail server has a dedicated IP address not on any Blacklist database. That will help improve deliverability rates and prevent emails from being marked as spam.

Set up bounce handling and feedback loops to remove invalid or inactive email addresses from future campaigns. That helps keep your mailing list clean and prevents sending unnecessary messages, which can reduce engagement rates over time.

In summary, setting up a mail server for MaxBulk Mailer requires attention to detail on several fronts, including choosing a reliable provider with critical features needed for successful campaigns while ensuring proper configuration of DNS records and maintaining good reputation scores through correct setup of bounce handling processes among others.

Conclusion

Choosing the best mail server for email marketing is crucial to the success of your campaigns. With so many options available in the market, it can be overwhelming to make a decision.

When selecting your mail server, remember to consider important factors such as deliverability rates, security features, scalability, and customer support. Additionally, always ensure that you comply with anti-spam laws and regulations.

Based on our research and analysis, SMTP2GO stands out as one of the choices for email marketing due to its advanced features and affordable pricing. MaxBulk Mailer works perfectly with SMTP2GO.

Properly setting up your mail server is just as important as choosing one. Be sure to follow best practices like authentication protocols like DKIM and SPF records.

By carefully considering these factors when selecting your mail server provider, implementing proper setup procedures, and following industry guidelines, you can achieve optimal results from your email marketing campaigns.

Recommended reading:
How to send a winback email
How to create an email list for marketing
What is bulk email?
How to send emails to thousands of people at once?
How to track bulk email opens and clicks

How do I Avoid My Emails being Marked as Spam?

As you probably know I am in charge of answering support requests here at Maxprog. As a result, MaxBulk Mailer users asked me about e-mail delivery issues quite often, especially problems related to spam filtering software flagging and blocking their legitimate messages. This is called ‘false positives’. This particular issue is quite frustrating because most of the time you have no idea where the problem comes from. In other words, you have no clue about what is happening and even what to do to fix it. It is even more frustrating for me when people think maxprog bulk mailer software is the culprit. There is no relation actually, MaxBulk Mailer is an e-mail client like any other. So, how do I Avoid My Emails being Marked as Spam?

In this post, I will try to gather all my knowledge about how to prevent running into this kind of problem. Let’s see the typical story:

Writing and sending a message

You composed your newsletter, as usual, you selected your subscriber list and then sent the message with a copy to yourself. You later found out that your copy never arrives and then, asking a few subscribers it turns out some of them did not receive anything either.

Does this story look familiar to you?

A message wrongly flagged as spam is called a false positive. A spam filter will check your message and will give it a score. If you reach a given score threshold the software will flag your message. Basically, the spam filter will check whether:

  • Your message looks like spam
  • The mail server you are using is blacklisted
  • The recipient list contains lots of dead addresses
  • The recipient list contains spam traps
  • You are sending your message to too many recipients

Ok. So, how do I Avoid My Emails being Marked as Spam? Let’s go through this list:

Your messages look like spam – False positives

When you write a message, above all, try to be as personal as possible. For instance, think and write the text like if you were sending the message to one person only. It is easy to do, just select one of your best-known customers and write the message with him/her in mind. Finally, add tags to the message to insert personal info, a personal greeting for example. It is explained in detail here: How to make your e-mail’s look more personal. Do not use spam-like words. The list is huge but just have a quick look in order to get the picture. A List of Common Spam Words, The Ultimate List of E-mail SPAM Trigger Words.

The mail server you are using is blacklisted

If your mail server is on a blacklist like Spamhaus or SORBS there are chances your message will never go through. How do you find out? Easy, MXtoolbox. That service will check your mail server domain or IP address with about 100 blacklists. Here you should get green OK icons on all lines. You should work on that overwise. Very seriously! All blacklist systems offer a way to get delisted.

The recipient list contains lots of dead addresses

How old is your list? Where or how did you get it? Are you maintaining it regularly? Did you know those big mail servers like Gmail may flag a message sent to their server after reaching a given error threshold? That means that if your list has what Gmail considers too much dead/invalid addresses, the whole message will be flagged. You should check your list and remove bounces from it! Bounces are those delivery error e-mails you get in your inbox, don’t ignore them! Remove the invalid e-mails addresses from the list right away. One solution is to verify the list with eMail Verifier at least once and then process bounces with eMail Bounce Handler as explained here.

The recipient list contains spam traps

Spammers usually collect email addresses by using automated e-mail address harvester software. Those tools build lists out of web sites. Spam traps are specific email addresses placed on purpose so any e-mail messages sent to such type of address are immediately flagged and considered as spam. Finally, an anti-spam system may instantly block your whole message as soon as it finds a spam trap. Nobody else will get it!… So, never harvest email addresses from the web and never purchase lists. Create your own lists!

You are sending too many messages at once

There are systems, like Gmail that may flag your message because you have reached a given delivery threshold. That means you have sent too many messages to that particular server. The solution is quite easy, send your message at a slower pace. It is explained here in detail: Sending a message through a server with a daily or an hourly delivery limit.

Test the ‘spamminess’ of your e-mails

Now I would like to talk about a great service I am sending all my customers to. It is called Mail Tester.

How do I Avoid My Emails being Marked as Spam?

This free service is literally for testing the ‘spamminess’ of your e-mails and avoid false positives. You just need to send your message to an e-mail address they will give you. A few seconds later you will get a score and a detailed report of what is ok and what is wrong. That simple! In addition, you get some directions to fix the problems. The best here is to try to get a score of 10/10, therefore, there are chances you will have to sign your messages with DKIM. Hopefully last versions of MaxBulk Mailer support DKIM. It is explained here: How to use DKIM with MaxBulk Mailer.

Allow the recipients to unsubscribe

And remember to add an unsubscribe link to your messages. You can do that by installing our Mailing List Manager (MLM) on your web site. You can use MLM only to handle unsubscribes for local lists and ignore all the other features. When you use MLM, MaxBulk Mailer will add unsubscribe headers that Gmail will display automatically.

In conclusion, I hope you liked this post and found some valuable clues on ‘How do I Avoid My Emails being Marked as Spam?’. I personally recommend you to follow the rules. For instance, try to write several versions of your message, test them with Mail Tester and use the one that gets the best results. Above all, do not be in a hurry to finish soon.

I welcome your comments.

More information on Spam:

E-mail Spam
The Definition of Spam
How to create and publish your first newsletter

Why MaxBulk Mailer now only supports https links

You probably found out that since MaxBulk Mailer 8.7, the ‘Preview’ panel no longer displays pictures referenced by addresses starting with http:// like before. You may wonder why MaxBulk Mailer now only supports https:// links?

Apple Security requirements

It turns out that Apple announced a new security requirement for iOS and OS X apps: App Transport Security.

From Apple’s docs:

Starting in iOS 9.0 and OS X v10.11, a new security feature called App Transport Security (ATS) is available to apps and is enabled by default. It improves the privacy and data integrity of connections between an app and web services by enforcing additional security requirements for HTTP-based networking requests. Specifically, with ATS enabled, HTTP connections must use HTTPS (RFC 2818). Attempts to connect using insecure HTTP fail. Furthermore, HTTPS requests must use best practices for secure communications.

MaxBulk Mailer now only supports https links

Starting with MaxBulk Mailer 8.7, this change matters to you because MaxBulk Mailer is now using the updated Apple libraries that have this requirement. Simply stated, it means that your URLs have to be secure (https), MaxBulk Mailer now only supports https links!

Why MaxBulk Mailer now only supports https links

As a result, any content referred with a URL starting with http:// will not get displayed in the Preview panel, only the addresses starting with https:// will be fetched.

What is https and what it has to do with emails

Actually, ‘https’ is like http but the former uses a secure SSL connection. It means that with ‘https’, communications between the web server and your browser are encrypted with an SSL certificate. The communication would be plain text otherwise.

The importance of security

It is clear that nowadays it is important to use secure https links everywhere. There is a clear tendency toward security at all levels. Such links offer confidence and above all, they can be accessed without security warnings. Well, you will be fine as long as the https site from where you are pulling your pictures from uses at least TLSv1.2 with a valid and up-to-date SSL certificate. If you don’t know what all that means just contact your server administrator.

Why you should avoid sending attachments

MaxBulk Mailer fully supports attachments but except in very particular cases I would recommend not to send attachments as part of a bulk email campaign. I mean all of them, whatever they are, PDFs, Word files, Excel files and even pictures. There are several reasons for that but I will talk about the most important ones (in my opinion) for you and your recipients:

– Message size and delivery speed:

If you add attachments to your message you have to be very careful about the total size of the files, especially when sending individual messages (default) because you will send as many times that size during the delivery. That means sending a 250 KB attachment to 1,000 recipients will generate 250 MB traffic! As SMTP servers use to give around 2KB/s bandwidth per client, your delivery will take up to 35 hours to complete!

– Security:

If you are like me, you are getting more and more spam with attachments. There is a real proliferation of such messages. If you don’t know the person sending you the email, you don’t open the file, even if you are curious. You just delete it. Indeed the opening of an attachment may potentially infect a computer so your recipients have to really know who you are. As an example, even a PDF file may launch any command on the operating system, after user confirmation (popup message). Different command lines may be specified for Windows, Unix and Mac. A PDF file may also contain attached files, which can be extracted and opened from the reader. That may be used to hide malicious executables in order to bypass some antivirus and content analysis engines.

– Server firewalls tempering / virus checking:

There are servers, especially corporate servers whose firewalls will almost universally block various types of email attachments. Typically they do it based on a combination of simple type matching rules (.exe, .pdf…), some heuristic checking such as sourcing or destination based on feedback of subscribed blacklists or virus checking. It is not always the firewall that does this, it can be a plugin or add-on device to the email gateway. Various companies sell specialized devices. Good ones, will notify the recipient and allow them to approve or disapprove the receipt of the attachment. Some others just drop them, even PDFs…

– Your recipients may not like attachments:

There are people that don’t like to receive attachments directly in their mailbox. Maybe because of the message size or maybe because they have a slow internet connection, they like to have the choice to download your files or not.

So, in conclusion and as I said before, better avoid sending attachments, better make them available online uploading them to your web site. You can then add links to your message so your subscribers only have to click on those links to download the files. I believe it is the best method.


Stan Busk – Software Engineer
at www.maxprog.com

Ugly emails with MaxBulk Mailer? Not MaxBulk Mailer fault.

Believe it or not I have heard people complaining about the ugliness of there messages sent with MaxBulk Mailer as if it were the software fault. MaxBulk Mailer is only a software to send messages, it sends what you write in the message field just as is. Of course, if you send ugly stuff it will be ugly for your receivers as well but if you send complex messages they may conflict with the recipient software especially webmail systems and your receiver may not receive exactly the same as what you sent.

MaxBulk Mailer supports several formats, Plain Text, Styled Text and HTML. Plain Text format will never produce unexpected results since it is a format that doesn’t use any kind of formatting, it is just text. The Styled Text format lets you apply styles to your text like bold, italic and underline, change the text color, insert pictures etc. It even lets you insert HTML code directly so you can add a table for example. The Styled Text format very rarely produces unexpected results, if the message preview is fine it will be probably fine everywhere else. Finally we have the HTML format. That last format is for messages made of HTML code, it is where you have to be more careful, let’s see why.

Designing a HTML message with a WYSIWYG HTML editor
Designing a HTML message with a WYSIWYG HTML editor

Ideally you will compose your HTML message with a WYSIWYG HTML editor tool. You create your message visually without writing a single line of code and when you are happy with what you have you reveal the code, copy and paste it to the MaxBulk Mailer message field. So far so well but there are times when the preview doesn’t show what you have designed, how comes? Well, first of all bear in mind that the MaxBulk Mailer preview is just for that, for detecting problems before you send junk to your recipients. It is the same as the Print preview, it lets you save paper and ink by previewing on your screen before actually printing. Ok, but why HTML code you have just designed doesn’t preview well in MaxBulk Mailer?

There are several possible causes like for example a missing CSS file, a CSS conflict, wrong picture URLs (relatives rather than absolutes), use of Javascript or the use of browser conditionals. Indeed what you have designed may need a few adjustments. This is because you will not use the code as a web page on your server but as an e-mail message, there is a big difference since mail readers don’t support everything a web browser does. For example Javascript is not supported, browser conditional comments are not either.

Usually you have to make sure the CSS code is included with the HTML code and not external. You also have to make all picture URLs and links absolutes. An absolute URL includes the full path starting with ‘http://’ or ‘https://’. Catching CSS conflicts can be done sending the message to the webmail addresses you have at Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Outlook, etc. Those conflicts are rare hopefully.

As you can see you have to do some work and maybe it would be a good idea to save it as a template when you are done with all your tests. Then you can reuse a piece of HTML code you know that works well. You can even download free templates from the internet, email templates that have been already tested with the most popular webmail systems and email software. I believe it is the way to go if you don’t know too much about HTML and doesn’t really want to. It depends on your skills and the time you want to spend on that. If you are interested in the subject I recommend you to read Sending beautiful e-mails with MaxBulk Mailer.


Stan Busk – Software Engineer
at www.maxprog.com

MaxBulk Mailer recipient lists no longer sorted alphabetically

All of a sudden, right after updating your system to macOS High Sierra you probably found out that all the recipient lists throughout the software were no longer sorted alphabetically. Well, I believe we were the first to find out and it took more than two weeks to actually receive the first complaints from MaxBulk Mailer users. We even received screenshots like this:

High Sierra file sorting issue High Sierra file sorting issue

So what happened? We believe it all has to do with the new APFS hard disk format that comes with the macOS 10.13 High Sierra operating system. It is a format exclusivelly used on SSD drives for now, maybe that explains why we received so few complaints.

That new APFS format no longer returns folder item lists automatically sorted alphabetically but somehow shuffled or maybe ordered by date, not sure. Anyway, as said above, we suffered the problem before anyone else and we fixed it right away.

To fix the problem the file list has to be sorted by code. That means we have to process that list before showing it to you. In other word, we need to sort it alphabetically as it was done before. We modified MaxBulk Mailer to do that.

You will find below a stable beta version of MaxBulk Mailer for you to try:

MaxBulk Mailer 8.6.2 beta3 for macOS

Please try this new version and share your impressions below. Are lists now sorted properly?


Stan Busk – Software Engineer
at www.maxprog.com