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Are You Spamming Your List?

Guest post by: Jessica Swanson

Article Overview: Like most small business owners, you’re probably putting a lot of time and energy into building your email list.

Are You Spamming Your List?

Like most small business owners, you're probably putting a lot of time and energy into building your email list.

And, like most small business owners, there's that inevitable day when deep despair kicks in. You only have 150 subscribers, you've worked your butt off and, at this point, you'll do just about anything to get more subscribers.

In your desperate state of mind, you decide that you're going to employ a creative, simple tactic to jump-start that list.

So, you cleverly go over to your Facebook Fanpage, gather up your Fans' email addresses and shove them into your email autoresponder program. Then, you head over to LinkedIn and Twitter and grab those email addresses as well. Wow...you instantly added a few hundred people to your list. You certainly are a clever little genius!

I hate to break it to you, but first and foremost, you're not being very clever. Every single day, I get an email from a LinkedIn connection or a Facebook friend who assumes that I'm just dying to be a part of their email list.

The problem is, I don't want emails from them. If I had wanted emails from them, I would have opted into their website.

And, moreover it's a big, fat hassle when I have to take the time to opt-out of their list. (Not to mention unfollow them, unfriend them and unconnect from them on the social media platforms.)

WARNING: Your LinkedIn connections, Facebook friends and Twitter followers have not given your permission to email them.

This "creative" list-building technique only ends up back-firing. Why? Because it ticks people off. People are sick of spammy emails. They're sick of getting too many emails. And they're sick of having to take the time to unsubscribe from the never-ending stream of spam.

So, no matter how incredibly tempting it may be to add virtual friends to your email autoresponder, don't do it.

Yes, they are your friends, followers, fans and connections. But, if they haven't given you explicit permission to email them, then you're not allowed to. It's as simple as that.

As I always say, I'd rather have a list of 500 laser-targeted prospects that have given me permission to email them, then a list of 15,000 names and emails that I have forced into communication with me.

So, leave the black-hat email tactics to the fake pharmaceutical companies trying to make a quick buck on discount Viagra pills.

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Article Tags: email marketing, shoestring marketing, small business marketing



Related Forum Posts
Re: EvanCarmichael.com Directory? - [quote="Evan":15wg1171]Thanks Cheryl for the suggestion! The biggest hurdle we've had in considering creating a directory is getting spammed and not having the resources to moderate it effectively. I'll keep it on the list though! Thanks again![/quote:15wg1171] Spamming has become the canker worm on Internet that cannot be easily removed. This should not stop us from this noble idea. I believe in the future there will be effective ways for us to fight spamming
Re: Email autoresponder messages: what delivery intervals? - Sub-lists are primarily created around the products I own. If my list A was about one topic, I will not promote anything to that list about another topic until I first have them opt-in to another list. Example of this is, let's say you were interested in internet marketing and you opted-in to a list for driving traffic (List A). I will not send information about product creation tips to that list unless I first have you opt-in for another list (List B). These two may be close enough so that might not be an issue, but what I find is most internet marketers drive all their promotions to their one and only list they own. So one day, it's about teaching mom-pop offline businesses about marketing, another day about oh let's market on Facebook, next day about, hey I found great product on promoting stuff on Mobile or cell phones, next week, let's talk about Amazon's Kindle, then Pinterest... You get what I mean. If I have to do above, it will be after subscribers decided not to buy any of my own products. Then I will send other promos to that list. But I think by minimum, it's good to create sub-lists for buyers of your own products so that you can send more advanced and higher end items exclusive to that list.
Re: Craiglist Advertising - Google Analytics Results - Craigslist has strict rules on posting adverts and they should all be for local ads. The fact you are posting in one city and then another means you *may* be breaking these rules. If you ramped this up and craigslist got annoyed they may report you to your affiliate and advertising networks which will then ban you. If you are not obeying craigslist rules and advertising your website, you are essentially spamming them. Spamming is not a long term business model and can get you in trouble.
Re: Twitter vs Facebook - [quote="barrysarner":ejpeof1u]I know this is a naive question but i'm really not sure: What do you tweet ? Business? promote your business? Personal? Are there things you can't do? ALSO :Is there a rule book? Is there a success formula using twitter?[/quote:ejpeof1u] I do a mixture of business tips, personal updates, success quotes, retweets, questions, promoting, etc... It just depends on what's on my mind right then. I don't think there's anything you can't do. I've seen everything on there. But I suppose there probably are some rules. Spamming is obviously frowned upon.
Re: How do you make the most of your day? - Here are a couple things I do to get lots done. First, I work from a weekly To Do List (although I should call it an Action List) rather than a daily list. Each item on the list must be one specific action required to move one step closer to accomplishing or finishing something. It's similar to what Robert Alan talks about. Each day I prioritize 3 actions that must be completed before the end of the day. I fully commit to those actions. Second, when I really need to focus on something to get the most done possible I work in timed 50 minute increments. That may sound a little loopy but it really works for me plus I feel refreshed working that way. So I literally have a little timer on my desktop that I set to count down from 50 minutes to zero. During that 50 minutes I work without interruption. When the timer goes off I stop whatever I'm doing and take a 10 minute break. You can get an incredible amount of work done working that way without feeling like you're working hard. I don't schedule 8 of those 50 minute time periods because there isn't a need to plus I'm sure you would wear out if you did. If you haven't tried this you might want to give it a try setting just two 50 minute time periods for a couple days and fiercely keeping them without interruptions to see what I mean. I'd love to hear about your experience and any other kind of quirky things that work.


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