3 Things To Avoid When Emailing Your List

3 Things To Avoid When Emailing Your List

When you decide to have an opt-in list, it is not just a matter of sending your subscribers your promotional newsletters or catalogs.  There are many things to consider in avoiding many complications.  While there are so many ways you can make people subscribe to your list, there are also some things you must do to avoid subscribers from wanting to get off of your list. 

Aside from that, you also want to avoid any problems with the law and your internet service provider.  There are many laws and rules that are designed to help protect the privacy of the internet users from spamming and unwanted mails. With the popularity of the electronic mail as a medium for marketing because of the low cost, many company’s have seized the opportunity and have flooded many people’s e-mail accounts with promotional mail.

But, with an opt-in list, you avoid this annoyance because people subscribe to the list; they want to receive the newsletters and promotional materials.  They have consented to being on the list by subscribing themselves, just don’t forget to put an unsubscribe feature (everytime) in your opt-in list so you avoid any confusion.  There may be times when an email account was provided when the real owner didn’t want to subscribe.

It is essential that you keep your list clean and manageable.  Arrange it by using the many tools and technologies available for your opt-in list.  Don’t worry; your investment in this marketing strategy is well worth it with all the coverage you will get which will likely be converted into sales then to profit.

Keep yourself and your business out of trouble and potential run-ins with the law and the Internet Service Providers.  Keep your operation legit and clean.  Your reputation as a legitimate businessperson and a legitimate site depends on your being a straight and true marketing strategist.  As a tip, here are three things to avoid when emailing your list.

1) Take notice of your unsuccessful sends. These are the e-mails that bounce.  Bounced emails, also known as undeliverable messages, are those messages that, for whatever reason, were not successfully received by the intended recipient.

There are bounces that happen or occur because the server was busy at that time but can still be delivered at another time.  There are also bounces because the inbox of the recipient is full at that time.  There are those bounce messages that are simply undeliverable forever.  The reason for this is that it may be an invalid email address, a misspelled email address, or an email address that was abandoned and erased already.

Manage your list by putting markings on those that bounce.  Erase an email account from your list so you have accurate statistics and records as to how many are actually receiving your mail.  You may also want to check the spellings of your email addresses in your list.  One common mistake is when an N instead of an M is placed in the .com area.

2) Always provide an unsubscribe feature on your site and an unsubscribe link in your e-mails.  When someone in your list files a request to be unsubscribed, always take that request seriously.  If you don’t take them off your list and keep sending them your e-mails, you are now sending them spam mail.

When you are reported as a spammer, you and your business can get into a lot of trouble.  You can be reported to the authorities and maybe blacklisted by many Internet Service Providers.  You will lose a lot of subscribers this way and many more potential subscribers.

3) Do not provide pornographic or shocking and disturbing content in your newsletters.  It is hard to decipher the age of the recipient and many complaints may stem from these.  Controversial issues also are to be avoided to not be branded by your subscribers.  Stick to the nature of your site and business.

Always remember these tips so you can have a healthy relationship with your subscribers as well as staying within the boundaries of what is allowed in sending e-mails to an opt-in list.

Until next time…

Follow me on Twitter!

Ed

Ways To Improve Sales Through Your Website

Ways To Improve Sales Through Your Website

Anyone who has been marketing online knows the lifeblood of a business is the traffic of a web site.  More visitors equal more sales.  However, here are some ways you can tweak your sites to improve sales without the need to get more visitors.

The first method is to weave in your personal touch in your sales message.  Nobody wants to be sold to by a total stranger, but many people will buy what their close friends recommend to them.  If you can convince your audience that you are a personal friend who has their best interest at heart, they will be convinced to buy your products.  Remember to speak to an individual in your salesletter, not your whole audience.

The second method is to publish testimonials and comments from your customers.  A good idea would be to publish both good and bad comments; that way prospects will be really convinced that these testimonials are real.  When prospects see testimonials on your website, they will have the confidence to buy from you because human beings follow the herd mentality; when others have bought and proven it authentic, they will jump on the bandwagon and buy too.

The third method is to use visual representations for the problems and solutions that your product offers.  Not everyone will read your text copy from the head to the tail, but most people will pay attention to images (or video) on your website.

The fourth method:  Offer quality bonuses to accompany your product.  When you offer bonuses that complement your product, your prospects will feel it’s a very good deal and it would be stupid to miss it.  Be sure to state the monetary value of your bonuses so people will be even more compelled to grab your great bargain.

Lastly, ask for the sale!  Many people entice their prospects with the benefits of their product, sell to them with stories of how it has solved many problems, even offered killer bonuses but forget to ask for the sale.  Give a clear instruction on how to buy your product (e.g. “click the button to buy now!”).

Until next time…

Follow my Tweets on Twitter

Ed

20 Ways Twitter Helps Businesses Beat The Economic Downturn

On Monday March 16, a discussion group I’m a participant in on LinkedIn, started a discussion on “Reasons why twitter might be right for your business” and after receiving over 120 comments back, the group organizer distilled the strongest themes into 20 simple points on how companies are gaining an advantage by using twitter. It’s true some companies are still getting familiar with this new tool and see it as a time consuming and useless, and there can be an overload of non-valuable information, but over 80% of comments received indicated the pro’s far outweighing the con’s.

Although twitter is strong in news and social interaction, it is playing a fundamental role in giving a number of companies a competitive edge during challenging economic times by:

– creating access to new customers
– receiving customer and public feedback that leads to more successful sales
– opening networking opportunities with contacts companies wouldn’t have had access to.

20 of LinkedIn’s Strongest Group Discussion Themes from over 120 Comments

Following are the strongest themes many companies said they’re enjoying as they’ve learned how to grasp the culture, grow their followers, and when needed apply external technology tools that simplifies the vast amounts of information.


Here’s how companies have benefited from twitter:

1.  Build relationships with people they would have not met before

2.  Exposure to lots of new business thoughts, technical ideas and leadership styles

3.  Finding new clients by commenting back on others’ tweets

4.  Access to thinkers and doer’s one wouldn’t normally interact with

5.  Can follow businesses you want the latest updates from with less effort

6.  Clients have asked for accounts to be opened so they can get regular updates

7.  Can assist Google rankings, sometimes it gets first page results

8.  Can assist in getting real questions answered real time during the day

9.  Been a great way to gain interactive access with new clients by following their tweets

10. Received access to publicity: radio, TV, press, speaking engagements

11. Allows leaders to connect to followers on a personal level

12. Without being pushy, it can generate buzz/talk about your company

13. Great for bringing traffic to your site if you offer truly valuable information and links

14. Provides a premier marketing tool when used correctly

15. Can be a great resource for getting push information versus searching the web

16. Can act as a news wire for journalist who are looking for story content

17. Can save time by getting the latest news without having to go search for it

18. Enables expansion of your database by removing budget or geography barriers  

19. It can increase your market reach if you actively promote your presence on twitter

20. A great way to showcase your expertise and differentiate from competition.  

 

Until Next Time…

twitter

Ed

Feel free to comment below if you have any thoughts you would like to share with other readers on this blog.