But I’m Not a Spammer! How to Avoid Being Mislabeled When You Publish an Ezine

[tags]ezine publishing, ezine tips, constant contact, kickstart cart[/tags]

Get an ezine. Sign up for list management. Collect subscribers. All good ideas… but what happens when you innocently begin publishing your own ezine and then suddenly someone gets fed up with your antics and hollers “Spammer!” for no apparent reason.

Just because you “told someone you weren’t spamming them” does not mean you weren’t spamming them, at least from their perspective.

On Wikipedia.org, spam is generally defined as “unsolicited bulk email.” You can argue the semantics of this until you’re blue in the face. Bottom line, if you send a “group email” to someone who interprets it as spam, or spam-like, or at the very least annoying, you run the risk of them reporting your IP to a spam blacklist. This means that later on, if you try to send bulk emails legitimately (through an opt-in, list management service), the anti-spam software running on their computer is going to read your IP and delete your mail before it ever hits their inbox.

There is a way around this. I mentioned opt-in lists. You’re probably on a few of them yourself, as a recipient to other people’s ezines. This is where someone drops their email address into a sign-up form on your site. In the case of double-opt in, an extra layer of anti-spam protection is added. Immediately following sign-up, they receive an automated email asking them to click a link and confirm their subscription in order to begin receiving your mailings.

Opt-in and double-opt-in work well because you’re giving your reader a quick and easy way out. Every email sent through your list manager contains a link at the bottom. By clicking this link, the reader may remove himself from the list.

Your reader could suddenly feel compelled to leave the list for any given reason. Maybe it’s a matter of bad timing… just one more email on a stressful, communication overload kind of day. Maybe it’s the headline. Some people are irked by marketing headline bait. Perhaps they’ve come of age in the world of online marketing, and your information tips no longer deliver value for them.

For whatever reason, it’s better to give your readers that instant escape hatch, than to force extreme measures. One measure might be, click that little button on the top of their email that says, “Block Emails from Sender.” Another would be if they remove you from their “safe contacts” list so that you’re forever relegated to the Junk Mail folder. A third is if they actually search out places to report spam IP addresses, and add your domain/IP to the list.

There is a far more pleasant option than any of the above three dreaded moves. Sign up for paid contact list management. Two recommendations follow.

For the budget-conscious:

Constant Contact at http://constantcontact.com

Perks:

• They offer you a choice of either pasting your email text into one of their templates, or using their Advanced Editor to create your own in HTML.

• You can view who opened your email, and who clicked through to any links you included in your mailing.

Drawbacks:

• They don’t offer an autoresponder service (comes in handy when you want to sell timed e-courses).

• They don’t let you sell automatically downloaded e-books from your website.

For the serious e-preneur:

Kickstart Cart at http://kickstartcart.com (a subsidiary of 1shoppingcart.com)

Perks:

• Lets you manage multiple lists with ease and includes autoresponders

• With a subscription upgrade, you can put e-product sales on autopilot. Your customer pays, clicks a link, receives the product and you didn’t have to lift a finger.

• Accepts credit card payments.

Drawbacks:

• Considered pricy by some

• Sometimes service is spotty - every time they make an “upgrade,” seems like the server goes blotto.

After you sign up for a legitimate ezine service, send me an email. I will then share with you some ideas of how to keep your prospects interested in your mailings, month after month, year after year. You’ll also learn the places to be seen in order to get ezine signups in the first place.

Keep reading - and I’ll keep on writing!

Copyright 2007 Dina Giolitto, Wordfeeder.com. All rights reserved.

Sign up for the Copywriting and Marketing Ezine from Dina at http://Wordfeeder.com and learn to write search engine-friendly Web copy and market your Web based business for free.