Why Outlook Should Not Be Used for Email Marketing
You may have asked yourself at some point: why should I use an Email Marketing application to do my mass mailing, when there are other means that do not represent any cost? If you really want to do quality work in a professional way, saving some money can cost you much more in the long run. For this reason, you should think about it very well and use the functionalities provided by professional platforms, which has the appropriate options so that you can successfully design email campaigns and monitor them to verify their effectiveness.
Reasons not to send bulk using free email services
Email marketing is one of the most important tools in Digital Marketing to attract customers, retain them and generate true brand ambassadors. The advantage that sending mass emails from Outlook can be a simple process at low cost, but generating real engagement with your subscribers will only be possible under a solid email marketing strategy, generated through professional applications.
Trying to do email marketing using free email services such as Outlook could cause great risks to your delivery capacity, not forgetting that you would not have statistics to measure your shipments and the possibility that the message goes to the Spam folder is very high. Unlike free email services,professional platforms comply with all the necessary parameters that guarantee the sending and delivery of your emails.
Some risks of sending email marketing campaigns using free email services
Lower delivery
Not only should you worry about your message being open, before thinking about it you should take into account the delivery capacity of the platform you are using. These providers do not have servers configured to send mass emails. In addition, some of them have daily limits for sending 250 to 500 emails per day and of course they are not designed to handle large volumes of emails, so if you manage to send a high volume it is likely that it will take a lot of work to try to get it the message.
No statistics
Another great disadvantage is the impossibility of measuring the results of the sending that you try to make through free email services. You will not be able to receive information that allows you to measure the effectiveness of email marketing campaigns, so you will not be able to know how many emails were actually delivered, the opening percentages, the bounce rates. Without this information you will not be able to know what you are doing well or what you should change. Another disadvantage of not using a professional email marketing service is not being able to control your bounce and unsubscribe rates (low) to keep your contact lists clean and avoid bad practices that can lead to a bad IP reputation.
No customization possibilities
Forget sending personalized messages, these free email services were not designed to manage contact lists that can be customized. Forget about putting the recipient's name in the subject or the content of the message automatically. You would also have to put the names of the contacts to whom you would send the message one by one.
Design problems
The newsletter design has very particular characteristics, as well as different rules for displaying the HTML design. Depending on the user's email, it will not look the same. The design must be adapted to the screens of mobile devices. For this reason, it is much easier for you to design from a software that allows you to use a Drag & Drop editor and ensures the generation of a responsive design, as well as previewing the message before sending.
Reputation issues
If you choose to send mass emails through Outlook, you have a high chance that your IP reputation will be affected. In addition, by not using a suitable application to send mass emails, it would really be giving you a direct ticket to the SPAM folder.
Subscription cancellations
Without the appropriate platform, you would not be able to manage the unsubscribes of your contacts, which could have serious consequences both at a legal level and to the reputation of your brand or product.
Do the right thing and avoid big problems
Creating an email marketing campaign is a very important topic that should not be taken lightly. If you want to do it in a professional and optimal way to avoid problems such as being cataloged as spam or creating a bad reputation.The important thing is that you use the appropriate tools with which you can work in a simple way, obtaining the best results for your business.