Entries Tagged 'Email Marketing' ↓

Marketing online and through email can be a tricky business, especially if you’re fairly new to the whole process.

One thing that should never be tolerated however (regardless of how ‘new’ you are in the business) is SPAM.

In a nutshell, SPAM is unsolicited bulk email.

Spam is sent through many different ways. Some people use their own email software like Outlook, and others use more sophisticated software that can handle thousands of email addresses.

It really doesn’t matter how you send it, if its unsolicited and its bulk, then its spam. No exceptions.

Here’s an example of spam which I’m sure many subscriber list owners are tired of.

Jane has a list of 200 subscribers for her interior decorating website. Out of these 200 subscribers, 17 of them are using her email address to send her emails as well. Those 17 people are spamming Jane. They signed up for Jane’s newsletter, not the other way around.

It doesn’t matter if their emails are related to Jane’s website, its still regarded as spam because she never opted in to their lists.

If you’re one of the people who do this, please stop now.

You lose your credibility by doing this. Instead, build your list with a reputable service like Aweber (you can read my Aweber Review here) and ALWAYS comply with the CAN-SPAM act.

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I’ve been using Aweber for quite a few months now, and I absolutely LOVE it!

I wish I had made the decision to sign up long ago. I really feel like it took my business one step further. I feel secure in knowing my subscribers information is safe and that my messages are being sent out.

There are tons of features with Aweber, but I’ll list a few of my favorites:

Once you’ve signed up for Aweber, you have an unlimited amount of autoresponders. You could have 3000 different lists if you wanted.

Tracking features include HTML open rates and click-through rates on both HTML and text only messages. This is extremely important information to have, and a lot of autoresponders don’t offer this.

You can send out broadcasts to your subscribers, or load messages into the autoresponder where you would set the intervals at which they get sent out. I do a combination of both.

Information from your subscribers is all carefully stored and you can use that information to help you determine their demographic. You can view which URL they signed up at, date and time they were added, and their country, region and even what city they live in. Some people might not need all this information, but if you’re targeting a very specific group of people, this can be extremely handy.

The web form generator is really easy to use. You can create an in-line form, pop-up, pop-under, exit pop-up or pop-over/hover forms. If you’re not sure which type of form to use, you can use the split-testing feature Aweber provides to see which works better.

Aweber also provides lots of detailed reports that include all the information you need for your email marketing campaign. If you’re not testing and tracking anything, then you’re missing out on sales and traffic.

The Aweber blog is updated regularly with really useful tips on how to make the most of your autoresponder and your list. Even if you don’t use Aweber, I would still recommend you check it out.

What I think is really important is the help section. I’ve yet to have a question that couldn’t be answered within their documentation, but if you do happen to have a question that isn’t answered, they provide live help desk support during business hours.

The downside to Aweber:

There is a bit of a learning curve when you first get started, but it should only take an hour or two of messing around before you get the hang of it.