Tag Archives: email lists

Email Lists

Contrary to popular belief… your email list isn’t an asset.

It’s a list of PEOPLE who have said, by giving you their private information… “We trust you.”

Do you get that?

I mean, really, do… you… GET… that?

By them giving you their trust, they expect it not to get misused.

So, what are you doing with that trust?  Are you marketing via email in an honest and ethical manner?

Are you telling the truth in your email?

When someone unsubscribes, do you ensure they DO NOT hear from you again?

Do you respect the fact that their inbox’s are already clogged with a bunch of crap (except for the emails from their known friends etc…)?

And please, please don’t tell me you make the mistake of treating them like numbers, and hammering them with email after email, trying to get an increase in conversions.

They aren’t numbers, your email subscribers are fucking people!

I hope you’re reading this and saying to yourself “I already know this Joe, and I always treat my email subscribers like people with emotions, problems, etc…”

But if you’re not, if you do any of the email marketing no-nos… shame on you.

Fix it if you have the problem… right now.

The Clog

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If you use the Internet to market your business… email is probably one of the channels you’re using.  If not, well, you’re missing out I guess.

But, email isn’t the big shiny object it once was… now there is a new problem to contend with in the email marketing arena.

I call it The Clog.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time I’ve actually written about pieces of The Clog in several posts under the title of “what email marketers SHOULDN’T be doing.”

So, the short version is, The Clog is a combination of stupid and lazy marketing tactics used by amateur marketers to get their messages opened, read or links clicked.

Here are a few of many examples:

  • Using deceptive subject lines like “Payment Notification” or even worse, re-using a payment subject line to get an email opened.  Not limited to payment subject lines, this practice also includes any subject line that does not tell the full 100% truth about what’s being read inside the email.
  • Hammering the people on their email list (who at one point trusted them) with 3, 5, even 11 messages in a day (yes, I’ve actually received 11 messages from one email marketer in one 24 hour period in a test account I use to “spy” on them… all promo).
  • Offering limited usable content… and mostly “promotional.”  Yes, it’s called email marketing, so promotion is expected, but when you’re sending one paragraph of useful information and 10 – 15 messages of promo… people don’t appreciate that.
  • Hiding the unsubscribe link or not having one.  This is a BIG no-no folks.  I’ve seen messages where the unsubscribe link is placed 30 forced returns down in the message in an attempt to “hide” it.  I’ve also received emails that do not contain an easy way for someone to quit receiving messages.
  • And on, and on, there is a LONG list of these blunders on my blog here, check out the Archives for more.

These items and others contribute to what I call The Clog… named that because these messages are useless and clog up someone’s inbox.  It’s almost like the email marketer at fault doesn’t consider the fact there is a PERSON on the other end, who is using up their time to filter through this garbage.

Why contribute to the problem?  Instead, nurture the relationship you have with the community of people who have trusted you to deliver useful information, and who will buy your products and services when the time is right for them (so long as your product is the one in the front of their mind — something that WON’T happen once you violate their trust).

Think about this today, but more importantly let’s clean up the Internet from The Clog. :)

Here’s how to get started with your own emails…

Special Report: 6 Steps To 6 Figures With List Marketing

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Paul Evans of Nicheology.com has a nice little collection of special reports (7 of them to be precise).

I’ve hosted one of them for you to download freely here…

6 Steps To 6 Figures With List Marketing

It’s a nice, short 18-page read on the basics of list marketing.

All solid fundamentals…I highly recommend you read it.  And yes, there are affiliate links inside, but you’ll only click those if you feel you can get value from the other 6 reports he gives away for free inside this report.

(one of the other reports is a 74-page report on how to build a marketing list…and if you never have done that before…I highly recommend reading it)

So download your copy of the first free report here…and enjoy the read.

The report is in PDF format which requires Adobe Reader to view.

Some Email Marketers Are Getting Really Lazy

This goes in the list of things I wish email marketers would quit doing…

So, I subscribe to receive some information from a marketer…then I get that information, find out I’m not interested in the rest…

…or that I’ve receive nothing of value from the email marketer…

…or the email marketer is one of “those” email marketers…

So I click the “Unsubscribe” button.

But the “no-no” comes when I keep receiving email from that marketer…so I click the Unsubscribe button again…

…and a few days later, I STILL receive email from that marketer.

So, I have to investigate.

Two scenarios exist that cross the line of ethics here, they may not be “illegal”, but come on people…who are you sending these messages to, robots or people?  Do you really think people enjoy getting messages they don’t want?

Scenario one:

When I subscribed, the marketer immediately added me to multiple lists within their business.  I know this, because I’ve only ever subscribed to one list owned by this marketer.  However, I receive 5 emails with the same message from the same marketer each time they send a message.

Pretty stupid I think.  Sure, it might get you some results if you do this, but at what cost?  Don’t you have higher integrity than that for your business?  Do you really think people enjoy getting “pegged” with emails from you?

Scenario two:

Similar to the first, this email marketer immediately adds me to multiple lists, but across multiple email service providers (i.e. Email Aces, Aweber, and GetResponse together)…so I get multiple messages…but when I click unsubscribe from one ESP, these marketers send email from the others.

Come on people…do you really think people will continue to respond to the endless stream of emails after they’ve decided to unsubscribe?

Doesn’t “No” mean “No” to you?

Within the “make money online” niche, there are a few well-known marketers doing this currently, and I’m toiling with the decision to call them out by name, with screenshots and such.  It’s actually pretty annoying when I don’t want to see email from a marketer, but they continue the barrage of garbage in my inbox.

When does stuff like this stop?

Just wait until the great filtering gets stronger…then these marketers will be scrambling to find a new way to get their incomes back.

Yet ANOTHER Thing I wish Email Marketers Wouldn’t Do…

Good god people, this is starting to develop into a series of blog posts…

(if you don’t believe me, use the search box on the right, and type in “email marketers”, then read the older posts with those words in the title)

One of my income streams is promoting other people’s products as an affiliate. There’s no doubt, that I receive emails from the operators of affiliate programs and individual marketers as a result.

But when I give my email address, with the specific intent of joining those programs…I expect that the “news” I receive will be affiliate related.

NOT OFFER RELATED!

I do not subscribe to an affiliate list to get pegged with offers people!

Now, the primary culprits are those in the “make money online” niche, and every time I receive an offer through an affiliate list subscription…

CLICK!  I click on the unsubscribe link.

If someone isn’t going to have high enough integrity to email me the news I signed up for (which goes beyond affiliate lists by the way)…then I guess that isn’t someone I want to be associating with is it?

NOTE:  If you’re one of these individuals who sends offers to the folks on your affiliate (or JV) lists…you might want to click here and get the 3 part report…then read that cover to cover and watch the videos. ;)

‘Nuff said.

Another Thing I Wish Email Marketers Wouldn’t Do…

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I just checked out the email account I use to get autoresponder account messages from other marketers.  I use this to “spy” on how people are using email to market their promotions.

NOTE:  At least 50% of what I see these days is absolute garbage, but that’s for another series of posts.

One email in particular inspired this post.

I read the email, clicked over to to the offer, and wasn’t interested.  So I went back to the email to read it, and it was actually really poorly written.

So I went to unsubscribe, and that’s where I noticed something that once I thought about it, I see a number of “marketers” doing…

They put the unsubscribe link…

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Way down here in the email.

I can guess why they are doing it (out of site, out of mind to try and keep unsubscribes down)…but why do it at all?

Are you really that self-conscious about your content that you need to try and hide (read: deceive) the link from your reader, so they can keep getting crap emails from you?

Really?  Do you need to do that?

Wow.

Instead, learn how to write effective promo emails (or even better, content emails or “friend-style” emails a la Frank Kern)…then you won’t have to resort to deceit and trickery to keep your unsubscribes down.

Also, here’s another thought…do you actually think people are stupid enough to continue paying attention to your emails (for the most part) when you do stuff like this?  To me, that would create a pretty useless email list…reducing the chances of landing any lucrative JV deals or other opportunities.

So, if you do this in your email marketing, don’t get me wrong, correct the behavior ok?  Or don’t…and eventually you’ll join the giant filter coming.

The choice is yours, but I know what I would do.

Until the next time we look in the mirror together,

–Joseph Ratliff