For those who do email marketing, here is a link to help you verify whether the emails you were giving a legitimate or not. I must thank one of my clients that found this and shared it with me! It’s too good not to share with all of you!!
Category Archives: Email Marketing
Grow Your Mailing List
Correct ways to collect emails:
- Sign-up form on website
- Sign-up form on Social Media outlets
- Sign-up sheet at events, booths, parties, etc.
- Sign-up sheet at checkout.
- Ask existing recipients to share your newsletter: Forward or post on social medias
- Run a special/bonus for new email sign ups!
- ASK PERMISSION!!
Wrong ways to collect emails:
- Add everyone from your inbox
- Pay for email lists
- Collect business cards at networking/social events
- Raid your friend’s inbox that forgot to log out of his/her account
- Gather all the emails in your aunt’s forwarded email
- Collect all the emails attached Social Media accounts
Get the idea? Collecting Email addresses the right way may be a slower process but people that want your emails, will receive them and you are less likely to marked as Spam! It will also better for your reputation - personal and business. What creative ways have you used (or heard of people doing) to increase your (their) email database - good or bad?
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Gathering emails for newsletters
Sure! You want to get your email newsletter contact list to grow, but how? There are good ways to gather email addresses and bad ways. Being listed or marked as spam is bad. Very bad. We all hate spam and I’m sure the last thing you want to do is to hurt your business or be dropped from your email marketing provider. If you are tagged too many times as spam, that could become a reality.
There are service providers out there that will sell you a list of emails. This is a waste of money most of the time. The people on the list may not be interested in your products or services are the email addresses don’t belong to real people. Sure you get a ton of emails, but do they want your information?
I personally can’t stand getting newsletters from strangers, especially if I have no idea how they got my address! Just because Joe gave you his business card with his email on it, does not mean you have permission to add him to your email newsletter list. I’m a Web person - I really don’t care that some real estate company is recruiting agents or is looking for listings. Don’t want it- please don’t sign me up. 
The best way to go about collecting addresses for your newsletters is by asking people directly. If you belong to a networking group, ask the other members; don’t just sign them up. If you are part of a trade show, have a booth at a state fair, or hosting an event have a sign up sheet available. You’d be surprised at the number of emails you will get. Most email marketing companies have a sign-up form that can be added to your website and Facebook pages. You could do an incentive for your current recipients to help spread the word and share your newsletter (coupons, a prize, a special personalized thank you, etc.). Getting the idea? It’s better to grow slowly than to have a host of strangers irritated with your company, wouldn’t you agree?
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Email Marketing
Thinking about doing an e-newsletter? There are many out there such as Constant Contact, MailChimp, VerticalResponse and a host of others. My best recommendation would be to figure out how often you plan to send out the newsletter (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.), whether you want a custom designed newsletter or are happy with a template, and how many contacts do you have/want. These 3 key variables are crucial in picking the correct service provider.
All 3 products listed have tracking and reporting. This means they let you know how many emails were opened verses not opened, added to the mailing list, removed from mailing list and much more.
Best advice… try out the products. They all have a free trial and MailChimp will even stay free, as long as you stay within the simple guidelines. The forever free plan from MailChimp - “Store up to 1,000 subscribers. Send up to 6,000 emails a month”.
NOTE: Please do NOT send e-marketing to those who do not sign up for the newsletter. You could be marked as spam, lose credibility with customers, business associates, and even lose business for unwelcomed email. Please ask the individual if you can add him/her to your emailing list!!
