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…

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Ed

SEO Spammers Running Rampant on GMail

If you haven’t gotten an email from spammers using a GMail account lately, consider yourself lucky. Spammers using GMail accounts are running rampant these days, and the so-called SEO Spammers seem to me to be the worst offenders, but by no means are they the only spammers utilizing GMail to send their tons of junk.

Gmail is just another Web-based service that is being abused. And though I could argue that Google AdSense has spawned a massive spamming industry, the real issue here is that black hat link spammers are abusing not only Google, but websites as well.

I am getting so fed up with the junk mail, 98% of it coming from gmail accounts, that I am getting real close to just blacklisting all gmail users from even sending me email. There are a few people with Gmail accounts who send me legitimate email, but the bogus form registrations don’t even come close to looking like real people.

That’s a drastic measure, and one that will certainly block some good Gmail users, but enough is enough. I, for one, am tired of having my free time eaten up fighting all of the Gmail spam of late.  And apparently, Google is doing very little (if anything) to combat this problem.  I don’t hold Google responsible for the fact that it enables spamming, but they have a form on their website where you report such abuse, but it seems that no one at Google is doing anything about any complaints that are filed at their site, so why bother? I’ve submitted several complaint forms, and absolutely nothing is done about them.

Google says that spammers haven’t cracked their Gmail captcha system yet, that the spammers are paying low-cost labor in overseas markets to sign up for Gmail accounts and spam every website they can find.

If spammers continue to abuse Gmail freely, and even worse, if Google does nothing about it,  I’m pretty sure a LOT of ISPs and forums will start blocking Gmail. That’s the only solution that we will have if we don’t want to waste half our day and resources on stopping spam from Gmail accounts.

Listen up Google, you monsterous beasts of the Internet, you are not beyond being blocked. Is anyone at the Goliath of the web listening?

I’d love to hear your opinion on this problem. Just leave your comment (pro or con) below. I’d love to hear from you.

Until next time…

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Ed