Do You Make These Email Marketing Mistakes? - Get Articles by Doug West

Get Articles
 
  

submit your own reprintable article

Article Categories

Accepting Credit Cards Online
Accounting and Book-Keeping
Advertising
Affiliate and Associate Programs
Articles and Article Promotion
Autoresponders and How To Use Them
Bonuses and Freebies
Branding
Business Ideas
Business Practice
Communication Skills
Competition and Your Competitors
Copywriting
Creativity and Ideas
Customer Service and Support
Domains and Domain Names
Due Diligence
E-Commerce
Ebooks and Ebook Writing
Education
Email List Building
Email Marketing
Ethics and Morals
Expert Status
Ezines and Email Newsletters
Family
Forums
Fraud and Scams
Goal Setting
Graphics and Graphic Design
Guarantees
Health
Internet Auctions
Internet Marketing
Investment and Investing
Job and Career
Joint Ventures
Lead Generation
Legislation and Legal Issues
Management and Best Practice
Motivation
Negotiation
Networking
News Releases and Public Relations
Niche Marketing
Outsourcing
Pay Per Click Search Engines
PC Security and Viruses
Pricing and Supply and Demand
Product Creation
Public Speaking
Publicity
Relationship Building
Reprint Rights
Revenue Generation
Search Engines and SEO
Site Stickiness - Getting Repeat Visitors
Software Reviews
Spam - Unsolicited Commercial Email
Statistics and Tracking
Testimonials
Time Management
Traffic Generation - Getting Hits
Travel
Viral Marketing
Web Hosting
Web Site Design
Working At Home - Starting Out
Blank Page
 
Google
 

> Get Articles > Email Marketing > Do You Make These Email Marketing Mistakes?

Do You Make These Email Marketing Mistakes?


PDF icon Download as PDF

Doug West
Dougkosoma.com

Kosoma Publishing
http://oiopro.com


Are These Common Email Mistakes Costing You Business?



I hope that you have already learned not to type your email in ALL CAPS as that is considered YELLING. Also, if you are doing business, I hope you are not one of those that types in all small case letters - no CAPS!



When I get an email like that it tells me the person is too lazy to hit the shift key, and is probably not the type of person I would want to do business with. Those are just some basic points about email, but we wanted to cover a few others that could make or break your online business.



Here is one of my pet peeves. You see something that you like, perhaps you may want to get it later, so you file it away in your email program. When you are ready to purchase the item or service, you email the person to tell them that you are ready to buy, and guess what? The email bounces back at you faster than a hot check.



You carefully investigate to see that you have not made a mistake, or that there has been some kind of mail server problem. Maybe you send the email from a different account or method. Maybe you have more than one ISP so you try another one. Sure enough, the email comes right back at you.



What does all this have to do with your biz? Here is the tip, and this is HUGE if you want to build a biz on the net:



Get A Business Email Address & Never Change It - NEVER!



We have done business with some folks who seem to change email addresses every week. One man bragged that he had over 20 email addresses (and you could never get him to answer you at any of them).



Changing your business email address is like moving your brick-n-mortar biz. What if your favorite store moved every week, and never told you where they were going? Or worse yet, you notice a new shop or store of some kind that you had not yet had the chance to visit, but were planning to. By the time you get ready to go, the thing has packed up and moved to a new location and left no forwarding address.



This is SUICIDE for a business! Don't do it!



Some online entrepreneurs think they can beat this rule by sending everyone their new address each time they move. But what about potential customers that are not yet on any of your lists? Those that have been thinking about contacting you. We get orders and business from ads that we have ran YEARS ago. Not every day, but they do trickle in, and every bit helps your business to stay in business.



DON'T DO IT! Don't try to beat the system. Get one address and keep it forever for your business. Sure, you can have a separate address for your personal email, and it is OK to change that one (just be sure to let your friends and family members - at least the ones you want to have it- know where you moved to) if you want - BUT - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NO - NOT EVER do you want to change your business email address - Just DON'T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



So how do you get one that you can keep forever? The best one is at a domain you own. Youyourdomain.com or Salesyourdomain. If you own the domain name, you can keep it for as long as you live or longer (as long as you pay the bill).



If you change ISPs just forward the email to a new address or box so that you still get all the mail that goes to your biz email address. Most servers have pop boxes that you can set up to catch your email (and most of them have limits to how much email they will hold so you better download your email fairly often).



There are even services out there where you can set up a pop box once you buy a domain name (don't worry if you're not a techie, all you have to do normally is fill out a form or something and your pop email box is up and working for you - ready to catch your email). You don't even have to have a web site hosted anywhere, just buy the name and many domain name registrars will Give you a pop email box and/or email forwarding.



Here are some places to look that may offer this service:



http://verio.com

http://000Domains.com/

http://dotregistrar.com



Also: http://www.GetDomain4Me.com is a directory of several other registrars you might want to check with.



When you own YOURDOMAIN.COM you can move as many times as you want and folks will still be able to find you via email at SALESdomain.com or whatever Permanent address you choose.



BUT I DON'T WANT OR NEED A DOMAIN



Domains names are so cheap anymore I can not imagine anyone trying to run their biz from a hotmail account or an AOL (the worst dial up ISP by the way) account, or any other account that may close them down, or close down altogether.



Another Option



You could also take out one of our Follow-Up responders (you need at least one of these to run your biz anyway), and any email that gets sent to:



yournameoiopro.info



Will be forwarded to whatever email address you give us. We will have to change it for you when you change ISP or email accounts. But just let us know and we will be happy to do it for you. To get all the details on our responders see:



http://oiopro.info/



Don't Use Funky Backgrounds

Or Stationary In Your Biz Emails



If you are reading this in our HTML format, it is probably because you asked for HTML email. We always give folks the option of reading our issues online or they can subscribe to a Text Only list.



If you want to impress Grandma or Mom with your ability to add a color or image to the background of your email, I guess that is OK. BUT, Never use a color ANY Color or image as a back ground in your business emails. We are not talking about all HTML email here (if it has a color background it has to be HTML), but those Funky background colors that make email SOOOO hard to read. DON'T DO IT!



Plain black type on a standard white (no color) background works best. Many folks (especially outside of the US) are still not able to read html or color email, so you will be losing them. Even if they can read html email, your funky colors and/or stationary images may impede them from seeing your whole message. SO DON'T DO IT! Not in your business.



Fancy will lose customers for you when it comes to email. If you do send something in html, always give the option to read it online where they can look at your message through their browser (which can see html), but still you need to have a color scheme that does not hide your message, or make it hard to read. Funky looking web pages are a whole other topic that we will cover right here in another article.



One last thing on email. There are starting to be a lot of these Spam killer type service that block all your email until someone clicks here or goes there and fills out a form or some such thing. DON'T USE IT - not with your business email account. You will lose business.



Learn to use your email program to filter out SPAM for your business account. You want the option to look at it all anyway, but you sure don't want anyone else having control over what email comes through to your business. It will cost you sales.



Put these simple rules to use and watch your online biz grow as more and more customers can not only find you, but can understand what you are telling them, and can easily make their purchases from you - now and for years to come!

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

Doug West is editor of OPPORTUNITY INVESTIGATOR ONLINE (OIO)

Subscribe free to OIO and get information on the OIO affiliate

program. Build your home biz online & create several additional

income streams at the same time! http://oiopro.com/emm.htm





How useful did you find this article?

Not at all
A little
Averagely
Fairly
Very
 


This article can be downloaded freely from http://www.get-articles.com and used on your website or in your ezine so long as the author is credited and their resource box left intact. You should not change any links in the article, and where the article is used on a website it's links should be clickable. Please see our terms and conditions page for more information: http://www.get-articles.com/authors-publishers-terms.php
 

Get Articles


Top Articles

  • Stop Saving Money!
    By Leo J Quinn Jr
    Rating 138 / 195
  • The Top Ten Reasons For Being Honest
    By Monique Rider
    Rating 152 / 180
  • Top 10 Qualities of a Great Team Leader
    By Naseem Mariam
    Rating 143 / 180
  • 7 M's of Every Highly Effective Manager
    By Alonzie Scott
    Rating 124 / 175
  • Seven "Secrets/Tips" to Becoming a Millionaire
    By Craig Lock
    Rating 97 / 140
  • Five wonderful steps for good presentation skills:
    By Thomson Chemmanoor
    Rating 44 / 75
  • Do Pop-up Ads Work for Your Site?
    By Brian Su
    Rating 41 / 70
  • TOP TEN TIPS FOR PRESCRIPTION SWIMMING GOGGLES
    By Danielle Ross
    Rating 53 / 65
  • Ten Steps to a Power-Packed, Persuasive Proposal
    By Linda Elizabeth Alexander
    Rating 46 / 65
  • How to get your audience involved in your PowerPoint presentation:
    By Thomson Chemmanoor
    Rating 26 / 65
  • Insider Rollout Secrets Review
    By Alex Poole
    Rating 52 / 55
  • The 7 Signs of a Scam
    By Sharon Davis
    Rating 42 / 50
  • How to write a communication plan
    By Matt Eliason
    Rating 38 / 50
  • The MSN Ranking Code Loophole
    By Chris Rempel and Dave Kelly
    Rating 38 / 50
  • 12-Step Foolproof Sales Letter Template
    By David Frey
    Rating 41 / 45
  • Tips For Non-Sexist Writing
    By Tanja Rosteck
    Rating 35 / 45
  • Preventing Fraud On Your Website
    By Aaron Turpen
    Rating 32 / 40
  • Useless Resume Objectives
    By Rita Fisher, CPRW
    Rating 10 / 40
  • Hacker Prevention Techniques
    By Aaron Turpen
    Rating 30 / 35
  • 6 Steps to Great Customer Service
    By Aaron Turpen
    Rating 25 / 35

    May 25, 2012 © www.Get-Articles.com. All Rights Reserved.