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Email Marketing Made Easy #11 - Avoiding Spam

Guest post by: Gary Baker

Article Overview: The importance of building an opt-in list instead of spamming (a.k.a., using unsolicited commercial email) is something that I can never stress enough. You must avoid it at all costs! That and more can kill your business! NEVER use your autoresponder for spamming in any way. You can lose your account, pay fines, get locked out from your ISP, lose your website and, above all, get jail time. It's a serious matter that must never be overlooked.

Email Marketing Made Easy #11 - Avoiding Spam

The importance of building an opt-in list instead of spamming (a.k.a., using unsolicited commercial email) is something that I can never stress enough. You must avoid it at all costs! That and more can kill your business! NEVER use your autoresponder for spamming in any way. You can lose your account, pay fines, get locked out from your ISP, lose your website and, above all, get jail time. It's a serious matter that must never be overlooked.

Sure, you may stumble onto someone who says they can help you spam without getting caught. But please remember this...The reason you want a smart autoresponder is to expose your sales message more than once to your prospects in order to create trust, credibility and believability.

So, why would you do something that literally contradicts that very notion? Spamming is good if it's done once. That's why spammers must keep spamming in order to stay alive!

Spamming is Like a Drug

Spamming is like a brief high... If it works (and it rarely does), it only brings a small cash infusion in the short term. That's all. You have to remain unknown, cloaked, hidden. Then you have to work, and work, and work... Non-stop!

On the other hand, if you build an opt-in list of eager, highly targeted prospects, you only need to work once... That's it! You can spend the rest of your time growing your business. Your Responder should be used to build your business, your credibility and your "backend" (such as additional offers). That's where most profits are made!

Here are four easy ways of using your autoresponder that can kill your business fast...

NEVER email a list of non-targeted email addresses picked at random (such as by using software to "harvest" email addresses posted on the web).

NEVER buy lists of email addresses from unknown list brokers or suppliers (many of them offer thousands of names on CD-ROMs, are often useless and are known as outright scams). Trust reputable ones only.

NEVER email any contact unless you have their explicit permission to do so (and that includes adding email addresses in bulk to your autoresponder database!).

NEVER share your own opt-in list to others, since their spam will kill your business even if it wasn't your fault! Spam can get you in a lot of hot water, plain and simple. That's why building your opt-in mailing list is the most profitable - and safest! - way to do business online.

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Article Tags: autoresponder, email marketing, marketing, unsolicited commercial email



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