When I speak of mass e-mailings, I know some of you out there are thinking SPAM. I have only one comment on spam: DON'T DO IT! Sorry about shouting, but this is one area I feel very strongly about. Not only is spam receiving a large about of attention from various governing bodies, but it is a waste of the spammers time. Think about it. Do you read spam e-mail? And if you do read it, how often do you act on it? Lastly, what do you think of the type of company that would use this type of tactics? This is not the type of message that most of us want to put forward to our potential customers.
So is there an acceptable way to use e-mail in your web promotion campaigns? The answer is, yes there is. In order to properly use e-mail in your web promotion campaigns it is necessary to obtain the recipient's permission before sending the e-mail. There are several ways to do this, but the most common is the opt-in mailing list. Simply put, you ask your web sites visitors to join your mailing list. Equally important, you must also give each recipient the opportunity to cancel their membership in your mailing list at any time.
Once your mailing list is compiled, don't inundate your readers with e-mail. There is a difference between being informative and being a pest. If your readers begin to feel overwhelmed by your mailings, they will begin to ignore them. Worse yet, they may stop doing business with you all together. My research indicates that every two to four weeks is sufficient to remind your readers who you are without overwhelming them with junk e-mail.
Copyright 1998, 2002 Tony L. Callahan All Rights Reserved
Tony L. Callahan, is a successful Internet Promotions Consultant with more than twenty years of industry experience and is president of his own Internet marketing company, Link-Promote. He also publishes Web-Links Monthly, a newsletter full of tips, tricks, tools and techniques for successful web site promotions. To subscribe, mailto: Web-Links-subscribe@topica.com. For an online archive of Tony's articles available for reprint, visit: http://www.link-promote.com/articles