The Scourge of Spam
by Dan Burbank
You're online because you want people to get in touch with you. You've got something to say, something to sell, something to offer. Come one, come all. Your email address is on display. You're easy to get in touch with.
You might be disappointed when the majority of people who try to reach you via your web site offer nothing but shady business opportunities, pornography and herbal viagra. If your email address is online, in fact even if you just have your own domain, you're an easy target for spam.
Despite the CAN-SPAM Act and increased public hostility against it, the tidal wave of spam isn't likely to subside anytime soon. But shutting down your site or removing your contact information isn't an option. Chances are your inbox is actually a mixed bag of bogus messages and legitimate client contact.
Why so much spam?
First, understand why having a web site can generate so much spam. Spammers are harvesting email addresses. They have software programs that poke around the web looking for publicly displayed email addresses (they'll even find them inside your site's code) and posting them to their list. Another strategy relies on the fact that most web hosts bounce any address @ a domain to the domain's owner. So they can literally add asdfjkl@yourdomain to their list and know it'll bounce to someone.
What's a frustrated site owner to do?
Ultimately it's a battle you'll have to fight on two fronts. The first front is on your web site, taking steps to reduce the harvesting of your site's email addresses. The second front is in your inbox, filtering and blocking the messages that do get through.
Your Site
The low tech. Try thwarting those spam-bots by posting your email on your web site as a small image or spelling it out in a way that only a person could read: bob AT thisdomain.com. Don't hotlink this address with a "mail to" tag and your address is less likely to be harvested.
A word of caution, if your site's audience consists of a lot of inexperienced Internet users this method may only create confusion among them. The other drawback is that if this address has already been harvested, changing its appearance on your site probably won't reduce the amount of spam coming in.
The form. Creating a contact form is another viable way to protect your email address. Though depending on how your form is designed, there's no guarantee that your address won't be harvested out of the script. Spammers have also figured how to write scripts against some common configurations of forms (ask a blogger about comment spam).
Encode it. There are utilities that will encrypt your email address inside a javascript. This means users will be able to get your address, spam bots won't.
You Inbox
The dumpster inbox. One way to steer clear of the spam is to direct all email coming from your web site to a separate inbox, perhaps a free one from Yahoo or Hotmail. This method will require you to go "dumpster diving" as often as you deem necessary based on the volume of email your site generates to pick the treasures from the trash. You can then take the quality messages to your primary email account and correspond from there.
Wash it. MailWasher has become a popular method of separating good and bad email as it comes in. It allows you to create friends list and black list in order to better manage incoming mail. You can try it out for free.
Upgrade your client. Try moving from web-based email to POP boxes, which will allow you to send and receive messages from Outlook, Outlook Express or Eudora. The advantage to running one of these clients is that you can create custom rules and folders that can help you manage your email more effectively. These rules tell the software to put every message from Harvey.Jones@yourclient.com in your "Good Inbox" while directing any message containing the word "viagra" in the subject line to your spam folder. Then you'll also have the option to add additional software like Norton Internet security which will also help filter out the spam.
Chances are you won't completely eliminate spam from your inbox. But using some combination of these strategies can clean up your inbox and allow you to spend less time wading through the junk.
Comments (0) 30.04.2007. 23:55
Enhance Your Customer Relationships with Email Newsletters
by Andrea Harris
Subscribe! Sign Up! Join Our List! These are common words on websites today, for good reason. Email newsletters are a powerful, inexpensive marketing tool.
Should your business have an email newsletter? If your customers and prospects are online, it's hard to say no. Here are a few examples of how you can enhance your relationship with your customers with an email newsletter.
Promote Your Business and Reinforce Your Brand
What better way to spread the word about your business than by writing articles that appeal to your customer base? Unlike traditional advertising, you're showing your expertise, not just talking about it.
A newsletter is another opportunity to reinforce your brand. Your value propositions, tagline, and logo can all be woven into the newsletter to solidify the impact of your brand. Jean Sifleet found that her newsletter "was a way to introduce myself as a practical, business-oriented attorney by answering questions in clear ordinary, language. It is my way of distinguishing myself from the more adversarial, litigation type attorneys."
Lend Credibility to Your Business and Establish Trust with Your Customers
When a customer sees your newsletter in her inbox every month, she knows you're serious about maintaining your business. Your timely and relevant articles show that you understand the problems customers face and know how to solve them. Feeling understood helps instill trust in your abilities.
Customers trust editorial copy more than advertisements. In an email newsletter you have the space to truly speak to your customers without any hype or pressure. As you solve their problems or provide them with pertinent advice, they will appreciate you all the more.
Keep Touching Your Prospects
Have you ever heard that you have to "touch" a prospect seven times before she will contact you about your product or service? It can get expensive to keep trying to touch your prospects with advertising. Email newsletters are an inexpensive way to remind people about your business.
Stay in Touch With Your Customers
Your existing customers are often your "low-hanging fruit." Although you may think about them months after the job is done, do they spend much time thinking about you? A regular email lets them know you still care, and encourages them to call you when they have a need for your service.
Capture Email Addresses of Prospective Future Customers
What about the "toe-dippers," those prospects that might be interested in your service, but aren't willing to pick up the phone? Don't lose them. Signing up for a newsletter is a no-pressure, hassle-free way for a customer to express her tentative interest in your business. She feels comfortable in the anonymity, and you still get to communicate with her every month. Perhaps she'll get a year's worth of newsletters before she's ready to call. Or maybe she'll just forward an issue to someone she knows who is in the market for your service. Either way, you haven't invested time or money on a high-risk prospect.
Inexpensive and Easy to Publish
An email newsletter is an inexpensive way to reach hundreds or even thousands of customers on a regular basis. There's no printing or postage, and design can be as minimal or extensive as you want.
The whole idea of email newsletters is fairly new, but it's easy to find businesses that have experienced proven results. Lisa Nirell, an executive coach in San Diego, started her newsletter in September 2002. " I've quadrupled my subscribers and enrolled two new clients with potential lifetime value exceeding $30,000. My ezine can be used to maintain contact with prospective clients and maintain credibility."
Your newsletter can bring you leads and immediate business, as well as an opportunity to connect with customers and deepen your relationships.
Andrea Harris, publisher of The Minerva Minute and owner of Minerva Solutions, Inc. helps businesses achieve professional, effective online and printed marketing communications. Contact Andrea through her website at www.minerva-inc.com.Comments (0) 30.04.2007. 23:45
It's a Hit
by Dan Burbank
I'm not a filmmaker but I'm willing to bet that the equipment that was used to make "Gigli" isn't too different from the equipment that was used to make "The Lord of the Rings." Each crew had lights, cameras and sets, but in the end produced two very different products.
Calm down film school flunkies, I concede that better technology probably makes better films, but this isn't a column about making movies. It's about email newsletters. Most moviegoers could care less about the model of camera or type of editing equipment that produced the movie. The audience cares about the content.
If you're launching an email newsletter the content is what your audience will care about too. Sure you'll have technological considerations, but if you produce truly worthwhile content your audience won't care if they're looking at an HTML encoded page or plain text. (Hey, "Citizen Kane" still holds up in black and white, right?)
So here are five tips to help you produce an email newsletter that is a hit.
1. Consistency. Isn't it distracting to watch a movie that can't decide if it wants to be an action-thriller or a comedy? And isn't it frustrating to catch the first 15 minutes of a great flick on TV, only to have to turn it off and tune back in an hour later?
Aim for consistency in what you deliver and when you deliver it.
Decide what will be included in your newsletter. Will it have original content, weekly specials, links to industry news? Whatever it is, provide it in each issue. Then choose a delivery cycle and stick to it. Whether you publish every Monday or on the third Saturday of every month, regularity will help to cement your credibility.
2. Treasures. Good movies make your forget the price of admission. Great movies stay in your memory and work their way into your life for years to come. These movies have actors, scenes or lines that you treasure.
Your email newsletter needs to be a little treasure in your recipient's inbox. Whether you're offering amazing deals or insightful commentary, you've got to make an impression. How many emails do you clear out of your inbox every morning? There some you're drawn to read first because of the sender or subject line. You know your niche. What can you provide to your recipients that will be treasured?
3. Brevity. If a movie clocks in over two hours it's on the long side. Push the three-hour barrier and you can't just entertain the audience, you've got to dazzle them.
Brevity is important for two reasons. First, your audience's attention span is shorter than you think. If your emails are lengthy, readers will get bored quickly, be less likely to open your subsequent emails (even if you correct the problem) and will either unsubscribe or become unresponsive. Say what you want to say as quickly as you can and if you'd like to include longer pieces, post them on your Website and link to them.
The other consideration is your own workload. You may commit to a weekly newsletter today but the email newsletter graveyard is full of dailies that became weeklies, that became monthlies, that eventually died (see consistency). A shorter email makes it easier to write an email newsletter that has the frequency and quality you want.
4. Formatting. You'd never try to jam a VHS cassette into your DVD player and you certainly shouldn't send an email newsletter to your audience that they won't be able to read.
The simplest, surest format to use for an email newsletter is plain text. Formatting the copy with a simple text editor, keep the width of your newsletter to 65 to 70 characters across, especially URLs. Anything longer could be broken by Web based email services like Yahoo and Hotmail. You can also break up the page and add highlights by using special text characters like ### or ~~~.
If you plan to use HTML be sure to validate the code before sending it. You'll have a hard time getting your message across if your email gets mangled when viewed in someone's inbox. You should also design one template and stick with it so that recipients recognize the visuals as your newsletter before reading a word. Keep in mind that more and more email providers are blocking images by default, so make sure the template holds together well without images displaying.
5. CAN-SPAM Compliance. Sensitivity around spam is extremely high and there are laws that make sending unwanted commercial email messages a crime. It's crucial to comply with the law when sending an email newsletter. First, only send email to addresses you acquire through a form on your Website. Don't start sending newsletters to millions of email addresses you purchased on CD-ROM via eBay auction. Second, make sure the program you use to send the newsletter includes a functioning unsubscribe link that allows recipients to remove themselves from your list easily. Finally, include the physical address of your business at the bottom of your newsletter.
Following this advice will keep your newsletter from being an inbox flop.
Comments (0) 30.04.2007. 23:40
