This is a guest post from Small Business Advisor Vernessa Taylor, better known as @CoachNotesBlog on Twitter. Vernessa is the person I rely on for Linux remote technical support. (She does Windows, VOIP, and much more, too.)
Wouldn’t You Prefer The Sweet After-Taste of Spanakopita?
Checking one of my overflowing email in-boxes, I encountered two email messages that led to this article. Neither one was marked as spam but both were from names I didn’t immediately recognize.
Not recognizing the name of the person sending me an email is not a reason to relegate it to the spam folder. In fact, those emails generally get my attention, get opened, then (maybe) get moved to the spam bin. (My filters are pretty aggressive, so if they didn’t catch it, it might be worthy of a look-see.)
This time, they not only piqued my interest, they piqued my ire.
One entrepreneur to another, I don’t mind newsletters, ezines, online magazines . . . or whatever you call yours.
Don’t Get The Wrong Idea . . .
- I believe in autoresponse systems as a method of automating communications with visitors and customers.
- I love the idea of marketing (especially email marketing), and both online and offline promotion — when done tastefully.
- And I don’t mind affiliate links to useful products or personal recommendations where you have a relationship with the provider.
Neither do I mind referring you and whatever you’re offering so long as you’re reputable and what you’re offering makes sense for my own clients, visitors, and friends. (And if you have a customer referral system in place, some rewards, or kudos, I really, really won’t mind.)
The fifty-cents question is this:
What kind of hard-head would I be if I didn’t make use of any of the above?
But, let me tell you, one business person to another, there are definitely some things I DO mind. You guessed it: newsletters, ezines, online magazines, and email communications that taste like spam are one of them!
Just in case you don’t have a clue, let me clue you in . . .
Let Me Unsubscribe
I do mind not being able to easily UNsubscribe
- Don’t hide the link. Everyone knows it’s supposed to be there.
- Don’t send the link to a landing page that takes more smarts to figure out than a kindergartner already possesses.
- Don’t berate me, insult me, or otherwise try to make me feel bad because unsubscribing is what I want to do. (I’ve probably got a good reason, but even if I don’t, woulldn’t you say that’s my perogative?)
Get My Permission
Yes, I do mind signing up for ONE of your newsletters and you adding me to several others without my explicit permission.
The ONLY exception to this rule, in my book, is if I become your customer and you’ve set up a sensible system that removes me from your prospects list over to your exclusive customers’ list so that I’m not still offered the same thing I already bought!
Even so, it’s better to have me opt-in on the Thank You page. Just sayin’.
Your Friends Ain’t My Friends, Yet
I do mind you sharing my name and email with your good friend and busom buddy who has a great deal for YOUR subscribers.
Why don’t YOU share your good friend, busom buddy’s name and email with ME, so I can select whether or not I even want to hear from him?
I appreciate referrals. Just refer HIM to ME … I’ll take (or not take) the next step.
The Right After-Taste
Don’t leave the nasty taste of preprocessed, congealed spammy meat in the mouths of those who might contribute to your bread-and-butter. Because wouldn’t you rather that after-taste be more like the remembrance of a nice slice of Spanakopita?
This is the place where I give you some tips … but I won’t. Because you already know what to do, right? ‘Nuf said.
(Well, maybe not quite enough . . . Let’s hear your comments!)
Photo Credit: Slice of Greek Spanakopita by Stu Spivack (Flickr) via Wikimedia Commons
NOTE from GrowMap: With any luck we’ll be hearing much more from Vernessa Taylor. I’m asking her to share her vast knowledge of time-saving business optimization skills whenever she can make the time. Be sure to check out her blog for exceptional advice on topics such as why using autoresponse systems is an essential time-saver and income grower for local and small businesses. (More articles by Vernessa here on GrowMap.)
Vernessa Taylor | CoachNotes Blog
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Scanning your mass email letters before they go out, can reduce spam filters collecting your mail. If you avoid keywords that are taboo, and images that may be corrupted you can usually get through.
That is a REALLY good idea! I wonder if any email management systems have thought of doing that.
Some of the top email marketing services do that as a matter of course and will give you a deliverability report.
Vernessa Taylor would love you to read ..Get Around Those Grammar Goofs
I feel the same with you. Be elegant – so the prospect will respect with the product on newsletter – I think is success key in email marketing. Thank you for your sharing..
Nurit would love you to read ..Knowing the difference between asthma and bronchitis
Being unable to easily locate the unsubscribe link is a big red flag in my book. If I can’t find it right away OR if it takes me to a complicated unsubscribe process I simply add a filter to delete it never to be seen again. My spam filters work fairly good, but they are by no means perfect and I do have to find myself using the email filter > delete option at least once a week.
It take some just a little time to figure out what proper email business etiquette is, while others are just good old fashion spammers. In either case, I think we are always going to have to deal with them (at least at a minimal level) as many other caveats that go along with the world of the internet. Kinda like the guy standing on center divider whike you at a stop light, with a sign that says “homeless, need food” and it is real obvious he’s not missing any meals….they’ll always be around…
Email spamming is the worst. Nobody like’s it when you subsribe due to useful content and end up with garbage. Spamming drives your traffic out the door and while it may make you some money in the beginning it isn’t going to help in the long haul. This is a great read!
William Moffitt would love you to read ..Finding your perfect niche!
Hi William,
Now you’ve gone and let the cat out of the bag! 🙂
Isn’t it amazing that so many who are struggling to drive traffic to their offerings are doing the very thing that will send it away in droves? We’ll let your words be a reminder for us.
Vernessa Taylor would love you to read ..Survey #1: Do Bloggers Monetize Blog Content?
I could not agree more with this. I think that most of my unsolicited emails end up in the spam folder. My question is don’t people realized that this is sending a horrible message to their customers.
If this is how you treat someone BEFORE they become a customer, I could only imagine what it would be like after the fact.
Matt would love you to read ..Luxe Travel Launches New Luxury Travel Site
Ahh, but they never figured people like us into the equation, right? Sometimes our voices really do make a difference!
Vernessa Taylor would love you to read ..How to Sell Your Product From Under Your Affiliates
sometimes email marketing work great if you have quality subscriber. = )
kaspersky topshop would love you to read ..Cheap Kaspersky Antivirus 2012 and Internet Security 2012 For Sale
Email spamming is an issue and we need to take care of all aspects when shooting newsletters or any other publication.
Superb article and brilliant timing Vernessa! LOL
As I said on twitter, I’m subscribed to this guy who has sent me something like 60 or so emails and have received exactly 28 emails containing “[HOT WSO]” in the subject line.
I really don’t mind receiving this guy’s offerings because some of them have turned out to be really cool and cheap products.
But… I’ve been a bit confused here.
After the first ones, he was the author.
Then it was him and some other guy.
And now he’s NOT the author of the WSO’s at all.
But he DOES WRITE things like “I already bought mine, you should get yours now, it’s incredible!”
To me, that smells fishy and I’m really starting to hate his campaigns.
The only reason I haven’t unsubscribed yet is because I’m just checking upon what he does next but I have absolutely no intentions to buy anything from him at all.
Very cool article Vernessa, totally shared this! 😉
PS. I was highly tempted to tell him in the forum that I was sick of his subject lines but that’d make me an asshole so I behaved, did not do anything and just let it be.
Sergio Felix would love you to read ..How I Got Rid Of Information Overload
Good blog! What people forget is that the people on the list you send broadcast email to are called “subscribers.” If you don’t market to acquire subscribers, but instead skip that and just start promoting your product, it really pisses most people off. You can’t “buy” a list of subscribers. They didn’t subscribe to YOU. Without exception everyone I have ever talked to who bought a list was unhappy. I don’t care how “qualified” the list, it still tastes like SPAM.
Ray Higgins would love you to read ..Toxic Levels of Discussions
I must be missing something. I’ve watched the second video twice now. Where do I sign up? Where’s the app? Is there a button I’m missing?
Ray Higgins would love you to read ..Toxic Levels of Discussions
Aha! I must have fallen asleep during that part of the video. Thanks for the help. I can see why you are so popular!
Ray Higgins would love you to read ..Toxic Levels of Discussions
I really enjoyed your article about email spamming. As a newbie to this interesting and most of the time frustrating genre, I really don’t have the answers to sharing a nice solo ad with the multitude of ezine subscribers. I really would like some advice since I really don’t like to spam the people who I am trying to share my wares with. Please enlighten us since I know I am not the only one that is curious.
Thanks in advance for your anticipated reply.
Its like most of paper brochure will end up in trash can.
Hi Vernessa!
So true all the points! Hate when I receive an ezine out-of-the-blue without permission and the worst part without a real unsubscribe button/link.
Apart of sending it to spam in most of the cases, if the email server is of trust like Aweber, Mailchimp, GetResponse, etc perhaps I click unsubscribe, but if not, is probably worst hitting that link because I’ll confirm my email address and then more Spam.
As you know as a tech-foodie – don’t like spammy food LOL, less in emails 🙂
Have a great week,
Gera
Gera would love you to read ..Human Spam- From Genesis until It Hit You
Hi Gera!
Haha, I’m with you on the no spam for tech-foodies. You’ve got an excellent point about not unsubscribing from untrusted services. That’s a good one, similar to what @melaniekissell said (below) about not unsubscribing from anything that’s already in the spam folder.
Since the other moniker for email marketing is “permission marketing” we should never receive ezines “out of the blue.” The good in all of this is we know what not to do, right?
Thanks for coming by Gera!
I’ve never actually tasted real spam, the food product. I don’t think I ever want to, but I hear it is good fried.
It’s interesting how they make some spam emails look like you sent them to yourself.
Toby would love you to read ..Can I Really Fall in Love Online
Hi Toby,
Yes, these folk take the conventional wisdom and attempt to turn it around on us. Using good sp*m filters help make it a bit more pleasant to actually wade through our inboxes. Thanks for your input.
I am firmly in the “email newsletters are quickly becoming irrelevant” camp. If you can’t get out your message to your target audience through blogs, Twitter and Facebook feeds then you’re doing something wrong. Newsletters were a useful marketing ploy back in the dial-up days when people couldn’t stay online forever, but in today’s always online world e-mail newsletters seem antiquated.
PLEASE don’t tell me that online spammers have found a way around it, because yesterday I got two e-mails, and they were both spams, but signed as a normal e-mail letter, i sertanly hope not, because if they have, we can kiss our inboxes goodbye and say hello to the massive spams, that will be flying in soon.
John Gregory would love you to read ..THE BEST WAY TO GET TRAFFIC
As some mentioned above, I get a lot of the links that lead to other pages, and you have no idea if you’ve been unsubscribed or not.
The one that really irritates me though is when an error comes back saying the link is broken, please contact admin.
I dunno about other responders, but Aweber unsubscribe links don’t just “break”, they are full of crap.
Dennis Edell would love you to read ..Do You Write Link Roundup Posts
Hi Everyone,
After reading this interesting post I just thought that most of us receives spammy newsletters but does someone has ever considered that how our email address is subscribed to these newsletters.
John Cooper would love you to read ..IBS Blog
Hi Vernessa,
I agree with that, most of the time we make this mistake. But one thing the list owner should avoid is that they should not use our email address without our permission.
John Cooper would love you to read ..Dietary Tips for IBS
Hey Vernessa,
It’s hard with the marketing the way it is (trickier and trickier) to ascertain what it is before opening it up. I’ve subscribed to newsletters only to be nailed 2-3 times a day with product after product. I’m a bit more cautious now.
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Vernessa,
This is so true. I do learn a lot from the newsletters I receive. That being said though, I sign up for the newsletter I want to receive. Having it easy to to be removed from the mailing list is important as well. I agree. Thanks 🙂
Lynda would love you to read ..Discount for Weight Watchers Monthly Pass
I’m not really a fan of newsletter especially if I get 3-5 emails from them everyday. I can tolerate reading 2-3 emails a week, otherwise I unsubscribe. Good thing there’s a link. Nice post 🙂
What a great post Vernessa, not only was it very entertaining it was full of informations as well, the good kind. You know it took me ages before I found out you could unsubscribe from this lists. I got so tired of some I actually spammed them. It wasn’t to later, after someone told me, that I knew you could unsubscribe 😀 Not really my fault though, they stick it right at the end, after a huge blank wall, where no-one will look for it.
Sire would love you to read ..Welcome To Buy Online Lottery Tickets
You are so right. I reckon it’s time a new breed of internet marketers is born, one that doesn’t start a list just for the sake of shoving affiliates down subscribers throats.
Sire would love you to read ..The Secret To Online Success Is Passive Income
It happens with many of us. Just to get people flocked to our site does not mean that we have to force them, instead we should impress them so that they come on their own. And yes the option to unsubscribe should be made available to all!
Joshua would love you to read ..Plumbing Practice Test
Like if you keep on sending them mails, and you do not provide an unsubscribe link in the mail, what would they do, they’ll come to your website in search of that. Weren’t they forced?
I always advocate in favour of interactive content and social interaction, rather than cheap practices.
It was really nice hearing from you!
Regards
Joshua would love you to read ..Plumbing Practice Test
Lately I see many emails with no way to unsubscribe. I actually received an email last week with an unsubscribe link directed to a squeeze page and no way to unsubscribe. Thanks for a great, comprehensive guide – I hope your article is read by all the right people! 🙂
Ana would love you to read ..5 Lead Conversion Ideas To Turn Blog Traffic Into Cash Magic
I am using FeedBurner to delivery daily news for subscribers, it also look like spam ?
Yes, I think it’s should be good like some autoresponder service.
Hi Tony, not sure I understand the point you’re making. Would you mind saying a little more?
The used to make a big deal a number of years ago about making sure there is a unsubscribe. In recent years it doesn’t seem like people care as much or let it slide I guess. Sometimes even if you do unsubscribe they keep on rolling in anyway. The thing I really hate is if I subscribe to something I really do not want 5-10+ per day. If they start filling my in box faster than I can read and/or delete them I usually unsubscribe. Sometimes within a couple of days. I don’t mind getting some just do not fill my inbox with them.
Ray would love you to read ..Cloud online storage
Vernessa,
Spam is the biggest time waster of all time. I hate it and I resent the intrusion into my time. There have been times where I have been so frustrated trying to unsubscribe that I’ve just permanently relegated them to either my junk email folder or directly to delete.
Sherryl Perry would love you to read ..Can Bloggers Learn a Lesson From Watching American Idol
An easy unsubscribe, not just important, not just good to see, but also the LAW…it’s my understanding the FTC can get pretty grumpy at certain violators.
Dennis Edell would love you to read ..Do You Write Link Roundup Posts
I’ve been meaning to look into that myself. I think you’re right though, if you deal with US customers, you’re liable to US laws.
Dennis Edell would love you to read ..Do You Write Link Roundup Posts
Anythings possible. 😉
Dennis Edell would love you to read ..Comment Avatars- Branding and Recognition Face Optional
Excellent points. It’s often hard to separate the useful email from the useless.
One thing I really hate is getting an obviously unsolicited email ad, or newsletter, or whatever, and right at the top is the phrase, “If you feel you’ve received this by mistake, please unsubscribe here.” On the plus side, the unsubscribe link is front and center, but since the message was unsolicited anyway, you really have nothing to unsubscribe to!
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