Building an E-mail Address Database

Written by Lauri Harpf


E-mail marketing works, there's no denying it. Its key advantage over other Internet marketing methods is that it enables you to contactrepparttar customer instead of forcingrepparttar 109640 customer to contact you. This ability is especially useful when something that your customers need to know as soon as possible has happened. Whether you've just released a new product or decided to cut your prices by 10%,repparttar 109641 fastest way to spreadrepparttar 109642 word is via E-mail.

However, unless you want to give your company a bad name, you can't simply start sending E-mails to people that haven't agreed to receive them. The only ethical and reasonable way to advertise via E-mail is to first obtain a permission, or an opt-in request, fromrepparttar 109643 receiver. The trouble is that this can't be done via E-mail, as it would be similar to asking someone whether you can ask them a question. What'srepparttar 109644 point in doing that, when you've already done what you wanted them to allow you to do?

Getting people to opt-in ========================

Due torepparttar 109645 above reasons, creating your own opt-in E-mail database is not an easy task. In addition, because of privacy concerns andrepparttar 109646 fear of spam, many people are reluctant to give out their E-mail address without a good reason to do so. These fears can be soothed by creating a strict privacy policy and sticking to it, but it's harder to convince your visitors that it would be in their best interest to reveal their E-mail address to you. Fortunately, there are some time-tested solutions available for that problem as well:

1. Arrange a sweepstakes with an attractive grand prize, for example one ofrepparttar 109647 more expensive products sold on your site. Require everyone who wants to enterrepparttar 109648 drawing to give out his E-mail address and agree to receive occasional E-mails from you.

To getrepparttar 109649 best possible results, it is advisable to declare thatrepparttar 109650 winner will be contacted via E-mail and needs to claimrepparttar 109651 prize within 7 days in order to receive it. By doing so, you'll eliminaterepparttar 109652 problem of people giving out bogus E-mail addresses in order to avoid receiving advertisements.

2. Open a discussion forum on your site. By only allowing registered users to post, you can collect E-mail addresses and deter pranksters from writing abusive messages atrepparttar 109653 same time. However, if you decide to use this method to build your list, be very careful. Sending advertisements too frequently torepparttar 109654 regulars of your forum may cause them to move elsewhere and thus reducerepparttar 109655 traffic to your site.

Email Overload

Written by Terry Johnston


Email overload is such a big problem that I believe your Site Pro News subscribers would love to read several practical tips for coping.

If you wish to publish this article in Site Pro News, please feel free to include it entirely or edit as you see fit. I think it would be beneficial to includerepparttar short bio and links atrepparttar 109639 bottom ofrepparttar 109640 article.

If you wish to take part in our Affiliate Program, please join and replace my links inrepparttar 109641 article with your Affiliate link. (You can get to our sign-up page through this link: http://www.emailorganizer.com).

Should you publish this article please let me know when you put it on your website and/or include it in your ezine.

I look forward to your response.

Best regards,

Terry =================== Terry Johnston Vice-President Marketing Caelo Software Inc. direct: +1 604.269.9006 mailto: tjohnston@caelo.com http://www.emailorganizer.com

Press kit: http://www.caelo.com/presskit.html Recent NEO press reviews: http://www.caelo.com/pressinfo/neorev.doc

=============================================

Email Overload - Coping Strategies

By Terry Johnston

We're here...repparttar 109642 information age! Having fun yet? What's that you say.... too much information, findingrepparttar 109643 spammers are gettingrepparttar 109644 best of you, facing a bloated INBOX everyday, too many friends are sending you those silly jokes and greeting cards, dealing with a mountain of lists and ezines that you spend more time sorting & deleting than reading, can't find that "important" email inrepparttar 109645 haystack, can't meet those deadlines because you're so preoccupied with sorting out your email?

THIS isrepparttar 109646 information age? What, pray tell, comes next.... Perhaps "The Information Organization Age" - Bingo!

You've all heardrepparttar 109647 statistics: * Every day 8 billion emails are exchanged onrepparttar 109648 Internet. * By 2005 this figure will increase to 36 billion. * 81% of corps. that implemented email did so to improve efficiency . * The average email user in business spends at least 2 hours a day dealing with email. * According to Internet researcher Jupiter Media Metrix, by 2006 consumers are expected to receive an average of 1,400 pieces of junk e-mail every day! * Yada yada yada.

Resources: Email organizing software does exist -- check out: http://www.emailorganizer.com and http://www.amikanow.com as well as websites that provide information that help with email overload such as http://www.email911.com and http://www.OvercomeEmailOverload.com.

Coping tips: For those of you brave individuals who want to take a stab at manual organizing here are some practical, tried and true strategies:

USE MULTIPLE EMAIL ADDRESSES Although most of you have already figured this one out, it's worth mentioning because it's so fundamental to an anti email overload strategy. One way to think of your correspondence is Personal and Public. For instance, you can open webmail accounts (e.g. Hotmail & Yahoo!) for your public, not-so-critical correspondence. This could include registering when you download software and utilities fromrepparttar 109649 net, marketing promotions, chat rooms and message boards. Your Personal address is reserved for higher priority business contacts, friends, relatives and associates. Although I now use email organizing software, hence my need for webmail accounts has dimished dramatically, at my peak I had well over a dozen accounts going. One caveat to this webmail strategy is that both Hotmail and Yahoo! are now applying strict minimum usage rules (they'll closerepparttar 109650 account if it's not checked in with frequently). Many people apply this strategy using POP accounts.

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