Harvesting Email Addresses
| Category: E-mail Marketing | Date: 2002-06-13 |
I know... I know... it sounded so good when you bought the program that claimed you could harvest thousands and thousands of email addresses automatically from websites, newsgroups, FFA Link pages, classified ad sites and other online services.
If youve ever been involved in sales and marketing you know its a numbers game and the idea of reaching thousands and thousands of propsects with email is very appealing. With no doubt its one of the most cost effective ways to reach a multitude of people in a short amount of time.
HOWEVER...
Collecting email addresses from websites, newsgroups & ezines and mailing to them without permission is NOT an acceptable means of email marketing nor is it very effective.
Let me tell you why...
This past week I received 52 copies of the same promotional email letter IN ONE DAY from one email marketer. Why? Because this individual either doesnt know or doesnt care about acceptable and effective email marketing protocols.
The same piece of junk mail was sent to dozens of our subscribe addresses, various autoresponders we have setup to send out our advertising rates and other domain addresses we designate for people who NEED our help. And guess what... All mail sent to our autoresponders is forwarded to me and they all landed in my IN-BOX.
The problem for me was the irriation of wasting so much of my time sifting through the added junk mail. Although I did have a laugh when I realized how many times he got our advertising rates.... I wonder if he enjoyed getting them as many times as I enjoyed deleting his email.
The problem for him is all that email landed in ONE MAIL BOX. He was hoping that 52 different people were going to actually receive that email, when in reality.. it was only one.
Many successful home based businesses are run by a one or two person staff. When you are in business for yourself you wear a lot of hats and do a lot of different jobs that normally would be done by various people in the corporate world. You may be the president, the secretary, the advertising manager and the janitor too! You may have an email address for each hat you wear to help you sort through your mail. This means that 6 or 8 email addresses may actually be going to the same person.
How did he get all of our email addresses? Some came from other ezines we advertise in, some came from our website and some came from the EBook SearchEngine News itself.
The point Im trying to make is... if youre tempted to harvest email addresses from sources that didnt give you permission to use them, you are only wasting your time and the time of others. Its not effective and you only serve to anger those who are not interested in receiving information about your products and services.
Angry people do not make good customers!
About the Author
Heather Colman, Publisher of eBook Searchengine News. Published bi-monthly by Colman WebShop, eBook Searchengine News will soon be the Premier "eBook Information" resource on the Net providing tips, tools, resources, and "proven" eBook marketing strategies for maximizing your eBook profits. Subscribe (ebsen-on@ebooksearchengine.com)
webmaster@ebooksearchengine.com
http://www.ebooksearchengine.com
If youve ever been involved in sales and marketing you know its a numbers game and the idea of reaching thousands and thousands of propsects with email is very appealing. With no doubt its one of the most cost effective ways to reach a multitude of people in a short amount of time.
HOWEVER...
Collecting email addresses from websites, newsgroups & ezines and mailing to them without permission is NOT an acceptable means of email marketing nor is it very effective.
Let me tell you why...
This past week I received 52 copies of the same promotional email letter IN ONE DAY from one email marketer. Why? Because this individual either doesnt know or doesnt care about acceptable and effective email marketing protocols.
The same piece of junk mail was sent to dozens of our subscribe addresses, various autoresponders we have setup to send out our advertising rates and other domain addresses we designate for people who NEED our help. And guess what... All mail sent to our autoresponders is forwarded to me and they all landed in my IN-BOX.
The problem for me was the irriation of wasting so much of my time sifting through the added junk mail. Although I did have a laugh when I realized how many times he got our advertising rates.... I wonder if he enjoyed getting them as many times as I enjoyed deleting his email.
The problem for him is all that email landed in ONE MAIL BOX. He was hoping that 52 different people were going to actually receive that email, when in reality.. it was only one.
Many successful home based businesses are run by a one or two person staff. When you are in business for yourself you wear a lot of hats and do a lot of different jobs that normally would be done by various people in the corporate world. You may be the president, the secretary, the advertising manager and the janitor too! You may have an email address for each hat you wear to help you sort through your mail. This means that 6 or 8 email addresses may actually be going to the same person.
How did he get all of our email addresses? Some came from other ezines we advertise in, some came from our website and some came from the EBook SearchEngine News itself.
The point Im trying to make is... if youre tempted to harvest email addresses from sources that didnt give you permission to use them, you are only wasting your time and the time of others. Its not effective and you only serve to anger those who are not interested in receiving information about your products and services.
Angry people do not make good customers!
About the Author
Heather Colman, Publisher of eBook Searchengine News. Published bi-monthly by Colman WebShop, eBook Searchengine News will soon be the Premier "eBook Information" resource on the Net providing tips, tools, resources, and "proven" eBook marketing strategies for maximizing your eBook profits. Subscribe (ebsen-on@ebooksearchengine.com)
webmaster@ebooksearchengine.com
http://www.ebooksearchengine.com
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