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"Deliver My Mail" was born
out of pain and frustration. Click here for the background, as published in our Sales from the EDGE e-zine.
When we published this issue of the EDGE, we found out that
we were not the only ones who were upset. Small businesses around the world ARE indeed "mad as hell" AND
"are NOT going to take it anymore."
However, please do what we did, albeit only after the above issue
was published. Cool down. It's "just business." So put that anger aside. Proceed logically,
coolly, and in cooperation with ISPs and mail services when they cooperate
with you.
Let's set the scene...
You are an honest, non-spamming online small-small business owner. In the normal course
of doing business online, you send automated e-mail to people who specifically
want your mail....
- a customer ordered, so you send a post-order e-mail with a thank you, a receipt, and some important information
- a person joined your affiliate program, filling out a rather lengthy form and even clicking "I Agree" to your Affiliate Agreement, so you send a "welcome" e-mail with important "getting started" information
- a prospective client subscribed to your e-zine, so you send an e-mail asking that person to confirm the subscription, per the usual "confirmed opt-in" requirements.
Obviously, e-mail is vital to your business. But suddenly, one day,
your e-mail is filtered out by the ISP or the mail
service of your new customer, affiliate, or subscriber.
SIDEBAR:
This will happen to you.
It probably already has to
some small degree, since there are so many irresponsible,
vigilante anti-spam groups who can put you on a blacklist
due to a few unsubstantiated complaints -- it's so easy to fall
onto these lists by your own accidental actions, or by
your competition who want to sabotage you through these groups. All
these little snakebites add up, and will continue to add up.
But it's the big one that does the sudden, noticeable damage.
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What Happens When Your E-Mail
Does Not Reach Its Destination?
- If you're lucky, your customer complains about it to you -- at least you can resolve the issue. However, be prepared -- a large filter will cause overwhelming support issues. And just to make it really hard to handle, your support replies (to those who didn't get your first e-mail) are blocked!
- Worse still, your customer may ask for a refund, blaming you. Or a new affiliate may simply forget all about it and not proceed with your affiliate program. Or your subscriber may not confirm his or her subscription to your e-zine. After all, if you can't "get your act together and send a simple e-mail, you couldn't have been very good!" Right?
Bottom line? You have all the headaches.
What's wrong with this picture? Simple...
It's not your fault. But you incur damages... financial, time, reputation, aggravation. All through no fault of your own.
So far, though, as long as the ISPs have acted with reasonable caution,
everyone must (in today's spammy
environment) simply accept this as "a cost of doing business." So let's reduce that cost...
The Deliver My Mail program will show you how to avoid the problem, and how
to minimize the fallout when it occurs.
Unfortunately, The Problem Will Get Worse
If Small Business People Fail To Be Proactive
ISPs and mail services deliver mail. We understand and expect
a reasonable amount of false-positives -- we
deal with that as part of our "normal" cost to cover our
part of fighting spam. But
here is what we cannot accept...
Some ISPs and mail services do not provide the ability for
their users to whitelist. Yes, you read that correctly...
Customer WANTS e-mail. Customer is filtered. Customer tells ISP "Deliver my mail."
ISP refuses. At this point...
It simply doesn't matter what the excuse is. The bottom line is that the
ISP is choosing what your customer can, and cannot, read.
In essence, they censor mail... they block it, even if their customer wants it.
If an ISP or mail service does not offer a whitelisting capability
that works (ex., Hotmail's "safe list" does not override a
false-positive), they are not fulfilling their basic duty to deliver
the mail their customer wants. They may hide behind the "small print" of
them being a private network and blah, blah, blah, but meanwhile... you will
be educating and activating
those customers on their way to a CUSTOMER-FOCUSED mail service that does whitelist!
The second major unacceptable situation? Picture this "general business situation"...
you do something wrong, knowingly or unknowingly, or maybe not at all. Perhaps it's
actually the fault of the other party. In a mature, cooperative, business world, the
two parties discuss it, correct the problem, and move forward. There is communication.
However, most filtering providers (ex., Brightmail) refuse
to tell you what (if anything) you
are doing wrong. So how can you even hope to fix the problem?
What if they are the ones in error (i.e., anything from typos, to
lies by saboteurs, to bugs by software, to mistakes in judgment by humans)? Centuries ago, a judicial system
(comprised of judge and jury) was
put in place because "vigilanteism" was not working -- innocent
people were hung. We're back at Square 1.
For example, try to get a useful answer from
"anti-spam operations" like SpamCop or Blars, even after you
"fix" every possible imaginary problem they might
be having with you -- it won't happen. They block, but they
don't answer "why" (even though there must be a reason, right?).
They don't unblock even when you do everything humanly possible,
and they don't take responsibility for those actions.
SIDEBAR:
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Blars actually prides itself on never removing anyone from a list! Oh,
there is one way. If you hire them at "$250/hour, 2 hour minimum, $1000 deposit."
Hmmm... now there is an enterprising business person!
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Irresponsible, non-accountable, "judge-and-jury" filtering services are
seriously and knowingly damaging your business. "Extortionists" who
"lock you out," and then sell the key to get back in, are threatening your livelihood.
SIDEBAR:
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In some cases, small businesses are even being "extorted" to pay non-arm's-length "bonding" third parties, in order to be "whitelisted." Yet those very same ISPs or mail services claim to be unable otherwise to whitelist their very own customers.
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Deliver My Mail not only aims
to stop that, it aims to recover costs and damages legally (more on that below).
What Should You Do When You Become
A Statistic... A "False-Positive"?
We here at SiteSell have already done it. And we're giving it all to you. Implementing these counter-measures against "false-positives" will save you countless hours of
research, of wondering, of worry, and of execution. And please note...
Deliver My Mail delivers more than just
your mail. It delivers on all the major goals outlined above,
including joining all small business voices together into a single,
strong voice. That voice will be heard by irresponsible ISPs and
mail services that do not care about honest, non-spamming companies who are
caught up like dolphins in the "FALSE-POSITIVE tuna nets" of
all the anti-spam e-mail filters.
Deliver My Mail has several
response levels, and is easy to use. Download the package and do a quick review of the contents. Then come back and continue reading about how you can become part of the solution.
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Downloading and Usage Instructions
You are about to download a self-extracting zipped file
("deliver-my-mail-package.exe"). Save it to your desktop. After you have
downloaded, all you need to do is double-click on the file
("deliver-my-mail-package.exe").
In the window that pops up, click on the
"Unzip" button (not the "Run WinZip" button).
This will unzip a folder called "Deliver My Mail Package" on your
desktop (if you do not change the default location). There are several
files in that folder...
Which one should you read first? Yes...
ReadMeFirst.txt -- all the info you need to get started, fast. This document
is the "must read" that tells you how to use the
files in the package.
Click here to download the Deliver My Mail package - 46 KB - Windows and MacOs
Note to MacOs users: you will
need free software such as Stuffit Expander (v5.5 or greater) to expand this file.
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After downloading the package, proceed with
your implementation of Deliver My Mail.
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