Always Ask For Permission...And Then Ask Again

Email marketing techniques: A week ago we discussed the issue of spam emails and asked the question “What was spam?”

The key element was that it was an email sent out to those people who did give you their permission to send them emails in the first place.

An example I gave was receiving permission for sending blog updates to your subscribers but then bombarding them with marketing emails instead.

Here is what I would suggest in such a situation.

• Firstly never bombard anyone with marketing emails. This overkill approach is nothing short of email bullying and should be avoided at all costs.


• When someone signs up for any of your lists (remember you can have lots of different lists with RocketResponder) ensure that you are always upfront and honest with them about what they are signing up to.


• The best way to avoid misunderstandings is to make clear exactly what sort of email communications they will receive in the “welcome email” you send to all new subscribers.


• In this email really draw attention to the fact that people can unsubscribe from your list at any time – including right now. For example they might have signed up in error or after reading your welcome email decided that they do not want to hear from you after all.

It is also a good idea to contact your list – say every six months – to ask them if they are happy to continue receiving emails from you. This serves to remind them of who you are and what you do and serves as an opportunity for you to “take the temperature” of your list. By this I mean you get to see if the people on your list are still interested in hearing from you.

Don’t worry if people unsubscribe – if they don’t want to hear from  you then there really is no point in sending them emails in the first place. And the people who do like you will like you even more for having taken the time to send them an email asking how they were.

 

 

Always Ask For Permission...And Then Ask Again

Help Yourself Avoid The Email Spam Trap

Email spam tips: Last time we looked at what email spam actually is but today it is time to look at how you can help yourself unwittingly be labeled as a potential spammer.

You may get this unwanted tag if you decide to include information at the end of your emails about why your email is NOT spam.

There is no reason in the world to do this because it only serves to make you look like a spammer.

RocketResponder’s Tim Linden wrote about this on his own blog recently and this is what he had to say…

One of our customers is having problems with deliverability and so I was looking through his account for reasons for this.

His from email address was a custom domain, valid email address, even had SPF records to allow RocketResponder to send from that address (which isn’t necessary the way we send them, but the fact he did it was above most normal customers).

I was really puzzled because the emails he was sending looked more “newslettery” than “spammy” too. Until I got to the bottom of the email.

Every email had at the bottom one of those really long 3 paragraph warnings that most spammers use, where they say they aren’t spamming they have the right to spam, etc. But on top of this one it said it was against the law to report him as spam. Seriously?

Now I don’t know about you but most of the spam I get has one of these warning books at the bottom. So it became very clear he was getting himself filtered for looking like a spammer. But on top of that I know many people would see that “law” as an invitation to prove him wrong.

When it comes to email make it very easy to unsubscribe, and don’t talk about it. That’s it. I don’t see any big time companies putting huge things in there, no they want you focused on the content. So quit reminding them about unsubscribing. Make it easy so if they want to they can, but don’t make them want to more!

 

Help Yourself Avoid The Email Spam Trap

So What Exactly Is Email Spam?

Anyone who sends email for business should want to avoid spam at all costs so what exactly is email spam?

It is perhaps the one thing about business to business emails that annoys people more than anything else.

But just what is email spam and how can you avoid sending it out by mistake?

Spam can actually mean different things to different people.

For example this is how Wikipedia defines email spam:

Email spam, also known as junk email or unsolicited bulk email, is a subset of electronic spam involving nearly identical messages sent to numerous recipients by email. Clicking on links in spam email may send users to phishing web sites or sites that are hosting malware.”

That is not necessarily true, or more accurately, not always true in every instance.

For example if you have a list of people then is is perfectly acceptable to send the entire list an identical  message with only perhaps the greeting changed.

The key point from the above definition is the word “unsolicited” and it makes all the difference.

If someone signs up to your list then they want to (or at least accept that they will) receive emails from you so that is not spam.

But sending out exactly the same email to a group of people who never agreed to receive email from you is spam. This could happen, for example, if you bought a list of email addresses.

Also don’t be fooled into thinking that just because someone is on your list that you are free to email them about anything you choose.

Say you have a blog and you got people to sign up for “regular updates” but they end up getting ten marketing emails for each blog update then that would almost certainly be considered by many to be spam.

Some other examples of spam could include:

• A newsletter sent out to a list of people whose details you obtained from attending a conference 18 months ago.


• A promotional offer you are sending out to a list of email addresses you bought from someone else. Clearly you don’t know who these people are, they have no relationship with you and might reasonably be expected not to want to receive marketing emails from you.


• Marketing emails you send to people whose emails you obtained in the normal course of doing business with you but who were never asked whether they wanted to receive such emails from you in the first place.

 

 

So What Exactly Is Email Spam?

Why Your Emails Keep Going To Spam Part Three

Today RocketResponder’s Tim Linden concludes his three part look at the issue of spam. Let’s take a look at why your emails keep going to spam.

In the previous two posts he explained why emails you want to see in your inbox might go to spam and what practical steps you can take to avoid that happening.

In today’s concluding post Tim explains just some of the things that RocketResponder do to ensure that your emails get into the inboxes of those who have subscribed to your list…

So I’m sure you’re wondering what we do at RocketResponder to ensure your emails aren’t being filtered because of other users.

Well we do a few things:

• We send the emails from your email address.


• We use a different sub domain for every member for all links in the emails themselves.


• We monitor engagement and group similar senders into different sending IP groups.


• We monitor all our IPs against blacklists and feedback loops and get notified every few hours of changes.

If you aren’t using RocketResponder then you should give it a try, we give you 30 days to try it out without paying or entering credit card info or even creating a Paypal subscription.

You’ll also save some money too, we charge $20 per 10,000 subscribers which is a huge bargain. Most other guys charge in 1000 subscriber increments, and they charge for unsubscribed users!

Via: TimLinden.com

Why Your Emails Keep Going To Spam Part Three

Why Your Emails Keep Going To Spam Part Two

There is no doubt understanding why your emails keep going to spam is one of the major headaches of email…both for senders and recipients alike.

Here RocketResponder’s Tim Linden continues his look at the issue of spam and gives come practical examples of how to avoid genuine emails getting wrongly filtered as spam.

Open your emails

One way of helping ensure that emails you want in your inbox don’t get marked as spam is to actually…open your emails! This one is less known, but Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc monitor which emails you open.

They care less about the content and more about engagement. If you want marketing type emails and are opening them, they want to put them in your inbox. The best way to help show your emails are wanted, is to actually open them yourself. Every email you don’t open is just re-confirming that you don’t really care if you get the email or not.

Click links to avoid spam

Click links in your emails! Similar to opening, they actually track if you are clicking links or not. Hotmail will go as far as to warn you if you click a link in an email that looks spammy and ask if you’re sure.

Click yes you’re sure, it’s your email and it confirms that it’s legit.

Writing good emails

Send emails people want! Obvious? yes but still people have this concept that if you “blast” enough emails you’ll get enough clicks to warrant the time sending the email. If this is your view, you’re going to get your emails filtered.

What people don’t seem to understand is that most email providers use reputation systems. For instance the from email address you are sending from. Or the links in your emails. I’ll bet they even track the address line that’s required by CAN SPAM. It’s no longer solely the responsibility of the ESP to get the email to the inbox which is why so many sketchy senders are finding their emails not going as far.

Next time: What RocketResponder does to help ensure your emails get delivered to your subscribers’ inboxes.

Via: TimLinden.com

 

Why Your Emails Keep Going To Spam Part Two

Why Your Emails Keep Going To Spam Part One

I’m not sure if this is a rant or not, but this keeps on happening with customers at RocketResponder. I’m here to answer why your emails keep going to spam.

Almost every day we’ll get customers asking about emails being marked as spam. It’s true, if we have bad reputation your emails won’t get delivered. But for the most part it’s up to you.

Don’t send spam! It sounds simple enough, but if you are sending spammy content of course it will get filtered. Every person who has asked why their emails ended up in spam is sending emails that I would consider spam if I got one.

Obviously their list subscribed so hey they want the emails, but the primary filters are looking at overall email quality, if they see you look like spam, they’ll think it’s spam.

Click Not Spam!! This again sounds simple, but the people asking say they always go to spam. Especially with Gmail, secondary filters learn what the end user sees as spam or not spam. So if you see an email is in spam, and aren’t clicking not spam, it thinks it was right that the email was spam. Its the same reason if you don’t mark an email as spam you’ll start to get more spam going to your inbox. It’s also the same reason that when I subscribe to these user’s lists, I get it to inbox while they still get it to spam!

Watch out for Part Two of this blog post next time where we continue our look at how you can avoid genuine emails getting marked as spam.

Via: TimLinden.com

 

Why Your Emails Keep Going To Spam Part One