Category: Email Marketing

Why Building A List Wins

Tim 9 Comments

Many people under estimate the importance of building a list. It takes work and sometimes a bit of trial and error to get it right, but once you’re in the groove it’s way easy and way better than other methods.

If you look at instant results, building a list isn’t there. I think that might be why so many people don’t bother. Say you can get someone to sign up to a program, or subscribe to your list, in 100 page views. At the end of the day one person is a referral, and one person is still a prospect. Short term, it’s not as juicy.

Long term however is where the money is at. For instance this blog, I now have 9,500 subscribers. I could stop advertising today and still have all those subscribers.

On top of that I can tell you about multiple products and services over and over. So rather than sell one thing to each person, I have the potential to keep on selling indefinitely.

It gets even better, when you build a list – it’s your list! You can download it, move to a different auto-responder, whatever you want. If your auto-responder service goes out of business, you still have your list. If a site you promote goes out of business, well your referrals are their list and you lost them.

So whether you are on a team or going solo, a list is a must. And doing it properly is a must. It’s not OK to just put a bunch of email addresses into your email editor and click send. It’s got to be done properly, with the unsubscribe link, etc. Sound difficult? It’s really easy if you use a system like Traffic Wave which handles the techy parts.

The only part you’ll have to worry about is writing of the emails, and making pages that have the subscribe form. You don’t have to be a great writer to do it. The people on your list will either like your style or not, no matter who you are. So if you write the way you naturally write, you’ll stick with it in the long run, and people will see you aren’t faking it.

Then the squeeze pages part is easy. TEtoolbox lets you copy & paste the code into a simple editor. So the fear of setting it up is just a fear of something new. The tools are out there, the help is out there, just get on and do it already!

Never Ever Ever Send Emails Like This

Tim 9 Comments

The screenshot is difficult to see, but basically its the TO line being maxed out. This happens periodically, and for me twice this week, so I thought it would be a great time to remind everyone. Program owner or not, this is not acceptable. Essentially everyone see’s everyone’s email address. I’ll go over why it’s bad first, and then how to not send emails that way after.

It Increases Spam

I received a peice of spam from someone once.  I seemed to recognize the address but couldn’t remember where. I did a search and sure enough I found it in an email sent by Hacker Safe a year before. This email was from an affiliate manager who sent out an email to all the affiliates. Me and the spam originator were both in the TO field. I would have canceled my HackerSafe account but shortly after this person no longer worked for them. Whether or not that was the reason, I’m not sure.

It Increases Viruses

This is similar to the spam area above. Although spam some people may do themselves, typically viruses will scan your emails for other email addresses. Nothing like finding an email with a few hundred victims.

It’s a Violation of Privacy

“We will not sell, share, or rent personal information to others.” Yeah that’s worded somehow in pretty much every Terms of Service/Privacy Policy. Accident or not, violating the privacy policy is a huge deal. If slip ups happen where it can be prevented sooo easily, then I wonder where else they are happening.

Average Joes: How to Prevent It

It’s simple. Put the email addresses in the BCC field. You’ll usually have to put your own email in the TO field, but the rest can go in BCC. In Gmail you just click the “Add BCC” link and bingo their’s the box!

Program Owners: How to Prevent It

Never Ever (repeat 10xs) send out mass emails with your email client. This is just setting yourself up for failure. Use a system like Aweber or have a script developed that sends out the emails individually. I recommend Aweber 200%!

What to do when it happens to you

Well I’m not really sure there is much you can do when a website breaks their privacy policy with you. I drop the program immediately and prepare for an increase in spam. What do you do?