Why not to use your ISP or GMail for E-marketing

One of the first questions I get when setting up a CRM system - either ACT! or ZoHo CRM is "how do I mail merge?".  Below are some reasons why you should not use the email merge directly from SageACT or ZohoCRM, and the alternative you should use.  Whatever you use, PLEASE do not think you can use your ISP or GMail to send mass emails. 
Personally, I use SwiftPage for a number of reasons - it's easy, it integrates directly into ACT!, the templates are easy to edit, the reporting is great.

I'm not addressing the one-off message to one person using a template or the email merge to a small group, or look-up, of contacts (e.g. a specific, very targeted message to a select group).  What we're targeting here is the mass email merge to many contacts (e.g. email marketing, product release, seminar announcement).

The first two can generally be done in your CRM system, the last one is the one you do NOT want to do directly from the system - here's why... 

First, and most importantly, your email provider, or ISP, limits how many messages you can send per day.  Going over that limit will cause a number of things to happen - all bad - depending on your provider.  Here's three limits from three popular providers:

Google:

In an effort to fight spam and prevent abuse, Google will temporarily disable your account if you send messages to more than 500 recipients or if you send a large number of undeliverable messages. If you use a POP1 or IMAP2 client (Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail, e.g.), you may only send a message to 100 people at a time. Your account should be re-enabled within 24 hours.

GoDaddy:

Your email account includes 250 SMTP relays per mailbox, per day. Each address listed in the CC and BCC fields count against your daily limit. One relay consists of an email message sent to one address using the SMTP service. Therefore, you can send up to 250 messages per day, per mailbox. Your SMTP relay limit resets once each day, approximately every 24 hours.

Zoho CRM/Mail:

250 emails/day

So, what will happen?  Your account could be disabled, you will be labeled a spammer, you will most likely get blacklisted by the recipients IT department, your merge will not finish, and so on.

[Note: while ZohoCRM (using their mail server) does have a limit, ACT does not necessarily have a limit from the program.  The issue with sending from ACT is system resources - a large mail merge will cause the system to max out on memory or processor, and lockup, and your email merge will fail.]

However, as I said at the beginning, there are more reasons to use an e-marketing system, as if getting your email system turned off for 24 hrs is not enough - 

• ease of use - unless you have unlimited time to create templates from scratch, create and embed images, when you should be using your time and effort elsewhere
• schedule sends for later - unless you want to sit at the computer 24 hours a day
• campaigns - series of messages or drip marketing to send for either marketing or events
• webforms - online forms/surveys that transfer data directly to your database, like a Contact Us or sign-up for an upcoming event
• reports - see how effective your email and/or campaign is

The most important take-a-way is to realize that your ISP, or GMail, is not an open pipe to blast e-mails.  If you get blacklisted, or tagged as a spammer, that's the end of any communications to that contact.  Take a look at SwiftPage, a very effective, and affordable e-marketing system.