Verizon Is Getting Out Of The Email Business: How Does This Impact You?

Verizon recently announced its decision to close down its email business. The holders of the roughly 4.5 million email addresses with an @verizon.net extension will have a very short period of time to migrate their email address as-is to AOL – or abandon the address. People who choose the first option will continue to use the same @verizon.net email address and you can continue to email them. If they chose a different provider or do nothing, their Verizon.net email address will be deleted by Verizon.

Over the next few months, Verizon will notify customers on a rolling basis that they have 30 days to transition their account or find another service provider. After 180 days of inactivity, Verizon will delete the account. [See Verizon.net Email Retirement FAQ]

What's the Worst That Can Happen?
Worst case scenario, you lose contact information for some valuable supporters. In another bad scenario, continuing to send email to bad addresses dings your sender reputation.

We recommend taking a proactive approach to protecting your relationship with supporters and maintaining your sender reputation.

What can you do in Blackbaud Internet Solutions?

• Determine the Impact. How many Verizon.net email addresses do you have in your database?
  • Segment your Verizon.net supporters in Blackbaud CRM. Run a simple query looking for those active users with @verizon.net in their primary email.
  • Run a list of supporters… scan the list for VIPs, event participants, other characteristics that mean it’s essential to ensure you stay in touch.
• Plan to stay in touch. Many Verizon.net email customers may decide to keep their existing email addresses and move them to AOL, but another large group of people may decide enough is enough and abandon their Verizon email address in favor of one from a dedicated provider, like Gmail.
  • Reach out to VIPs personally to confirm their email migration plans. Ask for alternate contact methods to ensure you always have more than one means of communication.
  • Consider a “Keep in touch” campaign. Email the group of Verizon.net address holders and ask for updated contact information if they plan to migrate.
  • Execute “keep in touch” plans soon – email addresses can be “frozen” by Verizon for some customers as soon as mid-April 2017. This process will continue over the next six to nine months.
• Diligently remove Verizon.net email addresses that “go bad”. Over the next several months as Verizon rolls out its “exit the email business” plan, you can expect to see more @verizon.net email addresses show up in your bounce reports.
• Do not automatically purge ALL Verizon.net email addresses. People who chose to migrate their email service to AOL should have uninterrupted use of their Verizon.net email address for the foreseeable future.

Please let us know in the comments if you have any questions. We’d also love to hear your feedback on approaches you take to “stay in touch” that prove time effective and deliver good results.