I use Aweber as my mailing list handler and there is much I like and can commend about their service – however I have a couple of gripes that I have been raising with them and wondered whether anyone else has similar views. I will highlight one grievance today and follow up tomorrow with my second.
I would so welcome any feedback.
Yesterday evening I sent out to one of our smaller lists on Aweber’s service. This is a very specific group of people who have enquired in the past about training as Clinical Hypnotherapists on Adam Eason’s courses and have downloaded pdf brochures. Of course they are also double opted in. When you send out a mailing you can see all the stats – including bounces and COMPLAINTS.
These were the stats for that mailing this morning. What bugged me was the complaints showing as 0.58% – now I know it is splitting hairs but according to my calulator if one person out of the total 177 had complained it would be 0.56% – so less than one person complained (actually that was a joke – lol)
However my point is that this stat is totally meaningless and yet as a user of the service I felt guilty. BUT - hang on what about?
Surely – only someone that has opened the message should be eligible to complain. After all the title was:
** {!name_fix}, Invite To WEBINAR To Ask Adam Questions About Clinical Hypnotherapy Course… **
The only people who received this were people who had previously enquired about Clinical Hypnotherapy Diploma Course training and double opted in.
How much more targetted can I get?
Exasperating!!
So more of a reaction than anything else I sent the following message to Aweber:
What really bugs me is this yellow box showing complaints. How anyone on our list can complain is beyond me as we only use double optin and the information we send is aimed at them specifically and not overly sales pitched or anything.
I feel that your yellow box is meaningless in many cases and is triggered presumably by being over 0.1%. Well that may be ok for a large mailing but see how crazy that figure is for the broadcast I did yesterday.
It was to a very specific list of only 177 people who have in the past enquired and downloaded information about a Clinical Hypnotherapy Diploma Course. The broadcast was simply to invite them to a Webinar to answer any questions they may have about the course.
Nothing on sale.
And yet I return this morning to see the open rate etc and find about 66 opens BUT 0.58% complaints. WHAT! WHY! That is less than one person given 66 opens. This makes a mockery of your stats and this silly complaints total you monitor.
I don’t get it and I think you are working against the interests of your customers and pandering too much to people who complain mainly because they love complaining without a thought as to what they are doing and are simply products of a blame culture. Yahoo, AOL, hotmail etc are unfortunately awash with hotheads and I really don’t know what the answer is but society and businesses such as yours certainly give them too much credibility.
I would urge you to read your customers messages to judge the quality of emails going out rather than flagging up what some anonymous idiot out there has done.
Kind Regards
Keith Watson
