Email marketing has been realized as a great channel to reach prospective customers. Businesses can not only find new customers but also retain existing customers through email marketing. A series of emails help customers to be updated with the happenings at your company/blog.
And, oh yes the money is in the list!
Emails also serve the purpose of newsletters. There are both ethical and non-ethical practices of email marketing. Let me focus on ethical email marketing that comes quite naturally from the good guys.
Formation of email lists
Email marketing has great potential to boost your business. Having realized the potential, individuals as well as companies are tempted to pump emails to large numbers without finding the authenticity of those mail ids. One should never be lured of this shortcut for success.
Instead of gaining advantage through email marketing, your email address might be blocked or noted as a spam mail ID or your domain may by blocked by search engines after identifying spamming activities carried out through your mail ID.
Good guys will not resort to purchase email lists. They take time and effort to build email lists themselves. Obtaining consent from online visitors for the email subscription is very important. This makes your job easy.
Even though it is quite easy for us to buy email lists for our discount coupon blog that features weight watchers and nutrisystem discount deals (since fitness and weight loss is one of the hottest niches around and people are easily willing to give their email addresses to stay fit and lose weight), we built our own list.
Convince users
Good guys will explain and convince visitors the usefulness of email subscription. Subscribers should be assured of protection of their email address. They should believe that you will not let their email addresses fall into wrong hands.
Opt-in and Opt-out
Users should have free option to subscribe and unsubscribe from getting emails. Opt-in can be checked at two levels. After registering their name and email address on your website or blog site, user should confirm the subscription through the email verification.
Double checking user authenticity through email verification helps you know that you are sending emails to the right party and you can comprehend that the email is not subscribed by third party without the knowledge of the actual owner of the email ID.
Users should have choice to unsubscribe from your emails at their expediency. You should honor the commitment by not sending a single email after user sends consent to not receive any more mails from you. Good guys will be able to achieve this competence as they fine tune the automated email marketing software as per the requisitions that handle subscribe and unsubscribe options automatically.
Subject line
While sending emails the subject should not mislead users. Capital letters, lengthy subject lines (more than 50 characters), usage of buy, discount and free words should be avoided in subject line. Let the natural flow of information happen and raise the instinct of the user to take an extra mile to further explore information and land in purchase zone of your products and services.
Email content and frequency
The frequency of email marketing messages also plays an important role. Good guys will not annoy users with multiple mails in a single day. The email should serve a purpose by informing, updating and saving time and money to the user.
The words used to convey the message should be clearly understood. They should not mislead or misrepresent the facts.
Beware of the email marketing laws
Email market promoters should be aware of the legislation made to this effect. Good guys will not only abide by the law but also will not infringe the freedom of others. Some countries have made legislations that prohibit sending commercial mails without winning user’s consent.
Stepping into other’s shoes
As an ancient popular quote reminds, “do unto others what you expect from them”, an active email promoter should remember this golden rule to deliver the best to audience. You don’t love to be annoyed. You don’t love to be spammed. You don’t love to be acted upon impolite by receiving unwanted mails.
You don’t like your mail ID to be distributed into wrong hands. You expect complete freedom to subscribe and unsubscribe emails. Hence, if you are able to digest the golden rule, you will be the best guy to promote your concern through email marketing.
Avoid spam email marketing
In spite of taking all measures right from the souring of email lists to sending mails at intended frequency and managing subscription automatically and sending quality and useful information, email promoters may be stamped as spammers.
Hence, care should be taken to manage the subscription lists carefully and pumping of timely, useful and short messages to get the maximum benefit as a good guy with least annoyance to the user.
Are you being traced as a good guy in promoting your mails? Let me know in the comments.
Image by: Sean MacEntee via Flickr
Jane also writes about weight loss and fitness discount deals as that of weight watchers online promotion code and ediets promo codes. She is part of the team that promotes weight watchers and ediets discount deals.
{ 47 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: torymcbroom
October 31, 2011 at 9:24 AM
Good tips Jane. Here’s a little more advanced tip one could employ: Since everybody seems to have a different idea of how often they want to be emailed, it may be a good idea to simply ask your subscribers! I use AWeber and they make it simple to send out a quick survey, which you could use to see how often your subscribers want to be emailed, for example – once a week, once a month, etc – then you can use that data to segment your subscriber list by frequency. Makes for happier subscribers in the end!
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Twitter: dietfitnessdeck
November 1, 2011 at 9:33 PM
Thanks for the wonderful addition Tory
Indeed feedback from our subscribers is just priceless information.
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Twitter: SaiTheGeek
November 12, 2011 at 12:03 AM
very thank you for your fast response for comments.keep it up
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Twitter: realtraffsource
October 31, 2011 at 10:18 AM
Thanks for sharing. I’m a big fan of email marketing myself, but i dont belive in sending out too many emails – no matter how good your offer is. 2-3 emails a weeks has worked well for me. Pure text based emails completely without images or any “bling” has also given me good response rates.
Rick recently posted..Increase Website Visitors To Your Blog, Website, Sales Page, Affiliate Offer or CPA
Twitter: dietfitnessdeck
November 1, 2011 at 10:03 PM
Rick, personally I don’t follow a regular schedule to email my subscribers. I just send out an email whenever I have something cool to say. And certainly I don’t send more than 2 emails in a week (that’s remotely rare). But I still get some unsubscribes saying that I email too often! LOL>
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Twitter: CAWebsiteIncome
October 31, 2011 at 10:58 AM
Hey Jane,
Email Marketing is very important and extremely effective if done right. Sadly a lot of people abuse it by purchasing email lists or by randomly spamming using internet robot programs, which usually leads to their email jumping straight to spam/junk and never read.
On top of that I think links in those emails might be penalized by search engines such as Google, if they were determined as spam.
Thanks for sharing.
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Twitter: dietfitnessdeck
November 1, 2011 at 10:06 PM
Purchasing a list is by far the worst ways to do email marketing. It will easily demolish a business! Thanks for sharing your thoughts Sayed.
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Twitter: windows7key11
October 31, 2011 at 11:52 AM
A very nice post i have a question i have 15000 customer on my shop i have there email address but still i dont find any good and free software through which i can sent email to them i download many softwares but they are not working please do you tell me any software to sent bulk email to them.
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Twitter: realtraffsource
October 31, 2011 at 12:18 PM
Hi Joseph! I have been using a email script from listmessenger dot com for more than a year. Its not free, but affordable (one time payment, around $50). There are no subscriber limits to the script and its pretty easy to use. You will have to install it on your server but the entire process is pretty simple.
Rick recently posted..Increase Website Visitors To Your Blog, Website, Sales Page, Affiliate Offer or CPA
Twitter: blogsnewsreview
November 13, 2011 at 5:27 PM
I’m curious about registered users on my WordPress blog. They may be spammers, but I have hundreds of registered subscribers. Any point in trying to contact them or getting them to opt into Chimp Mail? What do people do with these WordPress “registered subscribers” It’s not obvious how to communicate with them. Does listmessenger do that?
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Twitter: realtraffsource
November 14, 2011 at 3:01 AM
Hi! Listmessenger, and lots of other email scripts, should give you the option of sending an opt-in confirmation e-mail prior to adding subscriber. Let’s say you already have a list but you’re not sure if these are spammers or not: Produce a mass list with the email addresses and send it out with the opt-in confirmation option. That way you will be able to remove the spammers.
Rick recently posted..Increase Website Visitors To Your Blog, Website, Sales Page, Affiliate Offer or CPA
Twitter: couponseasy
October 31, 2011 at 1:08 PM
You can use Aweber or MailChimp, these are the best email marketing software available to email marketers. Do check for their coupons codes as you can get discount as well.
Good Luck!!!
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Usually newbies don’t have enough patience and they don’t want to put effort in list building and they do all things which ultimately ends with spamming. They should be more careful if they actually wants to build long-lasting blog or business.
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Twitter: dietfitnessdeck
November 3, 2011 at 10:18 PM
Aarti, you’re right. It is true that one cannot tolerate the dead slow growth of a list especially until it gets its first 100 subscribers!
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Twitter: bxunet
October 31, 2011 at 1:17 PM
I am not much fond of doing email marketing but I think I may try it now. Thanks Jane for sharing this one. I will definitely be considering your tips.
Thanks
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October 31, 2011 at 2:12 PM
Jane,
the good thing is that ethical e-mail marketing is also the most profitable e-mail marketing. By caring about what your readers receive and making sure they really want to be on your list with double opt in’s you are not only being ethical but greatly increasing the chance that your message gets opened.
What is the point of blasting someone with hard-sell marketing six times a day if it just ends up in the trash bin. It is far better to send lots of good messages with only the rare occasional sale. That way you pique their interests and make sure all of your customers/readers have the greatest opportunity to actually open the messages you send.
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Twitter: dietfitnessdeck
November 3, 2011 at 10:28 PM
The “punch in the face” marketing could have worked a couple of decades ago but certainly not now. People have more and more privacy issues, they want to be well respected – sending out too many sales emails will simply won’t work, but will only ruin the sender’s reputation.
Jane recently posted..SEO: 3 Easy Ways To Optimize Your Blog For Search Engines
Twitter: ExtremeJohn
November 1, 2011 at 1:21 AM
I think email marketing is a brilliant method in developing a business. Thank you very much Jane for sharing your information about ethical email marketing. Your advice I think is excellent, too.
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Twitter: india_darshan
November 1, 2011 at 2:34 AM
Hi,
Nice one with lot of ideas for online marketing i am sure this option of online marketing will prove good for all those who are working in online marketing because now adays most of people have not much time and they don’t want to receive a phone call for marketing.
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Anyone who emails me more than once a week and has in every email something to sell, I go directly to the unsubscribe. Emails must be building a relationship with the reader and get them to go read your blog. I find its better to offer products on a blog than in an email. The email should also help you establish yourself as an authority.
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Twitter: damondnollan
March 25, 2012 at 4:27 PM
David, let me ask you a question about your comment.
I’m not 100% confident about how to best use my email list. In the past, I’ve emailed to promote individual posts and then I started writing a small introductory message before listing the titles and related URLS. If I’m not selling something, what’s the best way to build a relationship with email subscribers?
Damond Nollan recently posted..C3 Church: Imagine Celebration Weekend
Great tips!
I wish more people would implement them.
Especially the one about frequency. I think even one email a day is a bit much.
But if you can deliver fresh quality content every day, then it is ok.
But some companies just send me the almost exactly same email allmost every day.
Because they think they are making a great offer, but I get less and less interested in them, because I don’t like anyone who spamms my inbox.
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Twitter: dietfitnessdeck
November 3, 2011 at 10:35 PM
Danny, people don’t like to be mailed everyday, as far as I found out lol. I send one mail in a week or sometimes in 10 days (if I’m busy with something else) yet, I get one or two unsubscribes for every mail I send and some people fill out the feedback as “too many emails”. You see? It depends on your list, though.
Jane recently posted..Email List: 5 Effective Strategies To Double Your List Growth
I know from my friends that there is such a problem when users have no opportunity to unsubscribe from someone’s emails . I guess that there is such an opportunity but probably it’s hidden somewhere so that non-technical user won’t be able to find it.
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Twitter: marcie_hill
November 1, 2011 at 12:52 PM
Thank you sharing the correct way to do e-mail marketing. I have been bombarded with messages from people who downloaded my e-mail address from Facebook, and it is totally annoying. And as you stated, I will do unto others as I want done to myself.
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Twitter: corrinla
November 2, 2011 at 3:52 AM
Emails must be building a relationship with the reader and get them to go read your blog. I find its better to offer products on a blog than in an email.
Words to live by. Hope that every email marketer would heed the advice found in this article. It is really a wicked thing, if one should resort to the unethical practices. Annoying!
Karylle Lynch recently posted..The Top 10 OSHA Violations of 2011
Agree Jane, you have to utilize email marketing in the correct way or it can backfire.
Twitter: manjunambiar
November 3, 2011 at 5:36 AM
I use feedburner. Haven’t tried services like Aweber. My problem is that a lot of subscribers who willingly give me their email ID don’t bother to confirm their subscription. I have even tried sending them reminders. It sometimes work, sometimes doesn’t.
Manjusha recently posted..IELTS Vocabulary – Idioms and Expressions
These tips will surely help email marketing in a effective way. I have seem so many spam email marketing campaigns and I am sure most readers will mark it as spam and eventually their mails will not show up in the inbox.
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I use a spare email account to sign up for any lists these days and 90% of the time the only reason why I sign up is for research. I like to see what other people are doing with their lists and seeing how they operate.
Shockingly, the majority of them blast the living day lights out of me with affiliate offers ever day. It’s shocking.
I mean, what ever happened to the quality newsletter? Sure there are some good ones out there but the vast majority of crap heavily out weighs those. They give the good guys a bad name and make people reluctant to want to sign up to any lists.
Michael Gibson recently posted..Planning Your Online Business – How To Make a Mind Map
I 100% agree with everthing you have said. I recently started emailing my past clients with a monthly letter. I actually got my domain suspended by my hosting company due to “SPAM” . After I told them what I was doing and where I got the list they changed their minds. So I suggest anyone that will be sending a large amount of emails that is on shared hosting to get pre-approval from your hosting company. I did not know about this but now I do. Just an FYI.
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Twitter: sahiwalianseo
November 5, 2011 at 3:41 AM
Nice blog. Keep blogging. Please visit mine when you have the time.
Twitter: MostDarren
November 5, 2011 at 9:48 AM
Spamming email doesn’t pay. These days anti-spam filters are better than ever and there are major consequences for doing it. You’re better off remaining one of the good guys
Nice post!
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Twitter: webmaisterpro
November 6, 2011 at 9:01 PM
Email marketing is fairly easy, but at the same time very tricky. I personally prefer to run campaign from A-Z in-house with scripts hosted by me and 3rd party SMTP. This way I can analyze every thing – from bounce rate to click-through. As well I don’t think that it is a good idea to run newsletter more than 2 times a month maximum or email list get exhausted.
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Email marketing is maybe one of the most complicated activity of the promotional process,even if it looks like easy to do.
On the contrary, before convincing readers and turn them into potential customers/clients you have to be noticed by them and win the competition. In some niches spam messages have simply destroyed any ethical email-marketing chance: in those markets (such as videogames, some internet related products/services) it almost doesn’t work anymore, in my opinion.
Twitter: rumblinglankan
November 8, 2011 at 1:05 AM
As mentioned in many comments the trick is to find the right amount of email to send. I think sending email rarely is also a bad thing, then people doesn’t seem to connect with the person. As long as you send quality content and occasional promotional material I don’t think there will be a problem.
Nishadha recently posted..How Companies Use Social Media Successfully
Opt-in is always a great way. And bribing people with discounts tends to work quite well.
Hello Jane. It is good to have ethical email list.But often subscriber do not pay too much attention to our mails. What is solution for this?
Email marketing has been realized as a great channel to reach prospective customers. Businesses can not only find new customers but also retain existing customers through email marketing
I’m always very careful not to sarcasm, because it is subject to misunderstandings.
(smile). However, this use of punctuation is not particularly suited to a professional email professional, and much less to a promotional message.
The e-mail communication, by definition, loses the subtlety of the dialogue face to face. It is more difficult to grasp the nuances of expression, to distinguish between jokes and phrases said seriously.
It is therefore advisable to keep the tone of the message on a conversational level, but not sarcastic. The sarcasm can sometimes be brought out with so-called emoticons;-) (joke) or
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Thank you very much for sharing this… You have done a great job…
Twitter: hannakakawate
January 13, 2012 at 12:32 AM
I’ve been to e-mail marketing once. All I can say that its quite hard. Convincing clients to visit your website, etc. But doing those tips might work. Its worth a try. Thanks.
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Great advice. The best I’ve read on this topic so far. It is easy to understand and well argued. I am not a fan of email marketing, especially on the receiving end, but if I were to sign up for a newsletter, I would want it to be like the one you described in this article. Thank you for educating all of your readers on the proper way to do online marketing!
Twitter: damondnollan
March 25, 2012 at 4:46 PM
Jane,
I’m still trying to figure out what the content of my emails should be. I have a personal blog that talks about a variety of subjects. With each email, I lose a few subscribers and get a few clicks on links. I don’t sell anything but understand an email list is important for blog success. What advice would you provide me?
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Twitter: chantel_mario
May 12, 2012 at 3:11 PM
Email marketing would definitely work if done the right way! Building the lists with great mail addresses in it! Writing a catchy subject! It’s so fun when it goes successful!
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Twitter: internetdreamof
July 24, 2012 at 11:05 PM
Don’t pump out too many emails with out very good content.
Even with good content, you have to send it out sparingly. Read that in the article
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