If this sounds like a bad idea to you, then it’s because it is.   If you are a new email marketer this may sound like a good idea to you.   Building a list of subscribers takes time and you found someone that’s promising you quick results by selling you entire lists of emails addresses from people that were already “targeted”, “verified”,  “opted- in”,  and “cleansed.”

Stop.  Just think about what you are doing.

You’re getting a whole bunch of email addresses, from people that never gave you permission to have them in the first place, so that you can send mailings that they never asked for.    How is that different from spam?   Not only are you wasting money on bad prospects but you are setting yourself up for nothing but trouble.

Here are some consequences you are likely to face:

• You will receive complaints to your ISP which will result in your company being disconnected.
• You will find yourself blacklisted and no ISP will want you as a customer.
• You will be prosecuted as there are laws against this here in the US and many places abroad.
• Your reputation as a company will suffer and no one will want to buy what you are selling.
• No one will take your mailing seriously,  it will go straight in the trash, where it will never be read
• Most of your emails will bounce causing mail server congestion and your ISP will fire you.

Don’t fall into a “spam trap” by responding to an unsolicited email from so called “list brokers” claiming to offer you targeted lists of subscribers.   These emails were either purchased from spammers or collected using harvesting programs that scan sites for email addresses so they can be dumped in a database.

To combat this some sites bury email addresses in their source code so that they are picked up by harvesting programs.  The company where the email originated is then alerted to any incoming emails that go to that address at which time they contact your web host and file a spam complaint.   This leaves you not only subject to being cut off by your hosting provider but it also leaves you open to prosecution.

You can purchase an email list from either buying or renting.   When you rent an email address you are not given the email address and your mailing is sent on behalf of you.    When you buy a list you receive subscriber details, etc.   You’re more likely to find a reputable rental service that does not offer subscriber details than you are to purchase a list of email addresses that you can use to send out your own mailings.  Companies that sell subscriber details should be approached with extreme caution.

If you do purchase then you will have to ensure that your mailing does not contain the following:

• False or misleading header information
• Deceptive subject lines
• Your mailing has an opt-out method
• Your commercial mailing is identified as an advertisement and has the sender’s physical postal address

If you do a paid subscriber list and have ensured that your mailing is compliant with local laws governing unsolicited mailings be sure to tweak your expectations.    You can’t expect much from people that have not opted-in to your list and may have never heard of you.   Adjust your expectations accordingly.   Its better to take the long view and collect your mailings through subscription forms and  opt-in email confirmations.    Your list will take some time to grow, but by ensuring the integrity of your list,  your list will be worth a whole lot more.

Many business owners fail to realize what an excellent opportunity e-mail marketing provides for developing lasting relationships with customers and potential customers who you meet offline. In much the same way that regular mailings can keep visitors coming back to your web site, they can also keep visitors coming back to your brick & mortar location. Regular e-mail contact with offline customers also provides all the other benefits of e-mail marketing to online clients: increased brand recognition, improved familiarity and trust, and an opportunity for you to expand the perceived usefulness of your products and services.

There are a near infinite variety of ways in which you can recruit mailing list subscribers offline, and the ways that are appropriate for your business will depend on the opportunities for interacting with clients that your business normally affords you. For example, if you run a retail business, it is both simple and highly effective to simply place a signup sheet on the counter. An even better tactic is to ask each customer if they would like to sign up for your e-mail list as they are checking out.

If you work with clients over longer-term projects or in a business-to-business setting, there are even more strategies you can employ to encourage contacts to sign up for your mailing list. One very simple way to do this is to advertise your newsletter on your business card. Just a few words describing the information you provide in the mailings and a URL to sign up at will draw more subscribers than you might expect, and they will tend to be very high-quality and high-converting subscribers.

These days it is standard practice to send a follow-up e-mail to a new contact, and this is a perfect opportunity to mention your newsletter in a way that can come across as more helpful than self-promoting. You should also very seriously consider adding a small advertisement for your newsletter to your e-mail signature and also onto your letterhead and invoices. This way everyone you come in contact with in a professional capacity will become aware of the additional information that you provide, which in turn will keep them aware of your products and services.

Any event at which you are speaking or presenting information is also a fantastic opportunity to build up your mailing list. Let your audience know what you provide through the list and why it will be helpful to them. Then simply pass around a signup sheet or collect business cards for people that would like to subscribe. These are methods of generating highly qualified leads that will pay off greatly in the long term.

We recently release 2 new free email templates and 1 new premium (paid) email template.

Click here to view the email templates…

Many people find the idea of building up a mailing list quite daunting. However, when you have built a successful web site with a steady stream of visitors, it is much easier than you might imagine to convert those visitors into mailing list subscribers. You only need to understand the reasons why people are visiting your site to begin with, and offer your newsletter to them as a way to get more of what you already know they’re looking for.

This means tailoring the content of your content to the audience of your site. Of course, the content you’ll want to include will vary widely depending on the type of business you run. Whatever your type of business, try to make sure that your newsletters are not simply ads for your products and services. Make sure to include useful information that is relevant for your customers. Remember, the best way to sell a product to someone is to teach them how to use it.

In addition to this, you need to make sure that visitors know about your mailing list and can sign up easily. This is why so many site owners are experiencing excellent results with pop-up windows. You simply add a pop-up on your site that displays for new visitors or for visitors who have not signed up for your mailing list already, and include a sign-up form and just a line or two about why signing up would be a good idea for them.

A great way to improve your sign-up rate is to offer something special to your users who do subscribe. What you offer should depend on what type of product or service you provide, but might include a free report on some relevant topic, or even a free e-mail course sent out over the course of a week or a month. Offering discounts or time-limited specials for newsletter subscribers is another very effective way of enticing people to sign up and maintaining great relationships with the subscribers you already have.

Of course, you will want to make sure that a sign-up form for your mailing list is visible on every page of your website. This not only makes it easier for people to find the sign-up form if they are looking for it, but also helps to build familiarity with the idea of joining your mailing list. The more pages your visitor views, and the more times he or she sees the sign-up form, the more comfortable and positive they will feel about the idea of signing up for your newsletter. This will tend to increase your sign-ups across the board.

Finally, word of mouth advertising is always the most effective form of advertising, so make sure to include a “Forward To Friend” link in every e-mail. Of course your subscribers could simply hit the “forward” button in their e-mail client, but adding in a special link for this purpose serves two functions. First, it allows you to track how many people are forwarding the message along. And second, it provides a subtle reminder to the reader that the newsletter can and should be shared with others who may find it valuable.

Effective email marketing writing is persuasive to your subscribers, enhances your image and credibility, and adds clarity to the message in your newsletter. Even the most eye popping graphics and layouts will lose their appeal if subscribers are presented with writing that is shoddy or substandard.In the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin bellows the following advice to his hapless sales team; “A-B-C. A-Always, B – Be, C-Closing! Always be closing!! A-I-D-A. Attention, interest, decision, action.” AIDA is an acronym used in marketing that is short for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. Recently I’ve heard it applied to email marketing as well.

Attention – Grab your subscriber’s attention with an engaging subject line so they open your mailing. This is your invitation to your subscriber to hear what you have to say. Once your newsletter is opened you can also get your subscriber’s attention with the appearance of the newsletter as well as the headlines and lead sentences. You may want to think of this as your pick up line or your “hook”.

Interest - If you are meeting someone for the first time and all you do is talk about yourself then you shouldn’t be surprised if that person gets up and walks away. This could be the point where your subscriber quits reading your newsletter or they opt out of your list altogether. However, if you include a person in your conversation then they are going to want to stick around. Focus on advantages and benefits as they relate to the substance of your communication.

Desire – Strong interest yields to desire. Use the power of persuasion in your conversation now that you have your subscriber’s interest. The better you can relate to someone in your conversation, the more they will want to hear. Use the body of your newsletter to convince your subscriber that you have what they want and they will feel a need for what you are offering. You are writing to build up motivation for your subscriber for what you are offering with your newsletter.

Action – Your newsletter should have a purpose and your writing should lead your subscriber to a clear call to action. You’ve now convinced your listener that you have what they want. Make it easy for them to do something about it! This action could be clicking on a link, purchasing a product, or even replying to your newsletter. You should structure your mailing in a way that is likely to generate a direct response from your reader.

Now, a word about subject lines or what we have noted as your all important hook. While you want to make this interesting enough for your subscriber to have a reason for opening your mailing you are going to want to exhibit caution. Think of the subject lines that you see in your spam box. You are going to want to be weary of using dollar signs, too much punctuation, or appearing needy as these are often techniques used by spammers. The subject line is important because you do not want to ruin the integrity of your list by being seen as spam. If you google top 10 spam subject lines you will get a good idea of what you want to stay away from.

A good rule of thumb is to keep your subject lines consistent and familiar to your subscribers. You can start with the same words so that your recipients recognize you. For example, “ActiveCampaign Newsletter: Name of the Newsletter” as a lot of email clients will cut off the end of the subject line. Try to keep the length of your subject line below 50 characters. Some internal testing may come in handy to see the maximum number of characters you can use before the subject line is cropped. You need not worry about this too much as you want to use as many characters as is necessary to get your subject across. The trick to writing a good subject line is to appeal to your subscriber’s interest which should be some combination of your target audience and relating the purpose of the newsletter to their needs.

There are many stylistic ways of holding your subscribers interest. Be succinct in your writing. This means giving your subscriber relevant information in as few words as possible. The more succinct your writing is the more weight your words will carry.

Include the most important parts of your newsletter in the beginning. Subscribers will read the introduction first before they decide whether the rest is worth their time. Many subscribers are going to scan through rather than read everything you write in your newsletter so arrange your text accordingly. This may include using dashes and bullet points as well as blocks of text rather than chunky paragraphs. You would write a newsletter differently than you would write a term paper or a thesis.

You can also engage your subscriber’s interest by using the active voice in your writing. This conveys a powerful message because when the verb of a sentence uses the active voice, the subject is doing the acting. When you use the passive voice the subject is being acted upon which can make your writing sound weak.

Keep your newsletter personal. Make your subscriber feel as though you are talking directly to them. One obvious way to do this is through using personalization tags such as the subscriber’s name.

Write to your audience. You can find out more about your subscribers demographic by using a tool such as A/B split to find out what your subscribers respond to. You do not have to be overly formal as in traditional business or marketing writing. It is perfectly alright to be irreverent at times so long as you are not overly casual and risk setting the wrong tone for your audience. It is important to know who your subscribers are before setting a tone for your audience. Remember you can set up separate mailings that target specific market and customize each campaign accordingly.

You’ll need to take in a few more technical suggestions into considerations with your newsletter. It’s best to avoid URLs altogether in your links. If you do use URLs in your mailing make sure that is reduced in length and that it fits on a single line. If you must use two lines for your URL then tell the subscriber how to piece the composite URL in their window. Also along those same lines, be sure to wrap all text at 68 characters per line. Although all email clients vary, all email applications will correctly display text at 68 characters or less per line. Also many email readers will only read ASCII characters. Be sure to avoid the use of “smart quotes.” Use a text editor and not a word processor when composing your messages.

Email Marketing plays an increasingly prominent role in running a 21st century Political campaign. In the 2008 US Presidential Election, which has generated worldwide interest, both candidates relied on email marketing to generate web site traffic, enlist volunteers for running a ground game, collect financial contributions from small donors, and to motivate their base to get out and vote. Whatever your political affiliation happens to be, or wherever in the world you happen to be, you can expect email marketing to play a prominent role in political campaigns from here on out.

In this article we’ll talk about what you need to do to run an effective political campaign by using email marketing. Email Marketing is a form of mass communication which is a discipline which is not altogether different from public speaking. Everyone can send an email to someone they know and write to that person in a way they will be understood. If you send the same message to a whole group of people you may get a different reaction from everyone you send it to. This is the tricky part of email marketing and a good politician will act as a good public speaker in their email marketing correspondence. This means they will carefully research their audience’s needs and carefully craft their words in order to make everyone in their audience feel like they are speaking directly to them. Once you have a message that resonates with your audience you will want practice good message discipline. A candidate is a type of brand which must be carefully controlled and their every word must be monitored. If a candidate goes off message then they give their opponent an opportunity to expose a weakness in their language in a way that would not be possible in carefully scripted language. In politics, often times what you say and do matters more than what you mean or what your intentions were.

You’re going to want to keep a consistent FROM address in your emails. You’ll use a different “From” name in your campaigns. Sometimes your From Name will be from the candidate themselves and other times it will be from the campaign manager or any number of key figures from your campaign. Keeping the From address consistent so that it is something like info@yourcandidate.com will keep consistency in your supporters email clients and will help avoid your message from being placed in junk mail folders.

The types of emails you send should be short text based messages that are clear, focused calls to action. These contain low-commitment calls to donate small dollar amounts or volunteer.  You can easily provide substance for these emails by posting links to ads or campaign videos, spin negative coverage by appealing directly to your supporters, report on gaffes by your opponent, provide information on meet ups and rallies, impassion your base by calling attention to negative attacks, and to otherwise focus your message in a way that will excite your supporters. Mainstream media isn’t powerful because people lack options on where to get news. The power of the media comes from its ability to write compelling stories that attract an audience. You will want to keep this in mind when using email marketing to tell your candidate’s story.

Ensure that your mailings are permission based. Your mailings will lose all effectiveness the moment they are regarded as spam by your subscribers. Candidates work relentlessly to build subscriber lists and they are very well aware of metrics such as open rates and link tracking. You will also want to use personalization tags such as your subscriber’s name to help keep things personal. If your mailing is anticipated, personal, and relevant to your subscriber then it will always outperform spam.

In order to use your subscriber list as an effective base for running a political campaign it’s important to define what that base consists of. A base is a tribe of people that have shared interests and vision. Every candidate has certain strengths with a particular base. Building a new base in politics as in marketing is very risky and expensive. Email marketing is an inexpensive way of building and maintaining a base. However, your success will ultimately hinge on building a base that you can then turn out to vote. This will still come down to your vision and how you are able to connect that vision with core constituencies of your electorate.

Email marketing is one of the most effective and versatile methods for marketing your business during an economic recession. Its low cost and ease of implementation make it ideal for small and growing businesses as well as larger and more established organizations. The unique flexibility of this marketing platform also allows for a greater degree of experimentation and accountability than other options.

Maintaining a regular e-mail contact with your customers helps to builds familiarity and credibility for your business. This is particularly important in times of economic stress because people tend to be more careful about who they spend their money with. When you have an established presence in your customers’ minds, they will feel more comfortable making expenditures on your products or services because they will see you as a consistent and reliable vendor.

A great way to do this setting up an autoresponder series that provides useful, relevant information to each new subscriber over a period of weeks or months. Once you have set up such a series, it literally runs itself, allowing you to effortlessly build trust with your clients by offering them education and advice that reinforces their need to utilize your products and services. You can maximize the benefit of these and other types of mailings by targeting them to specific subgroups within your mailing lists to ensure that every piece of e-mail your clients receive from you applies directly to them.

On top of this, an active mailing list allows you the luxury of instant publicity for your sales and promotions. The messages you send out arrive directly in the inboxes of the people who you already know are most interested in what you have to offer. The benefit of this is two-fold: you will experience a much higher conversion rate with this type of message than less targeted forms of marketing, and will also realize more word-of-mouth advertising due to the increased loyalty that you will see from your mailing list subscribers.

As I have mentioned, cost is also a major advantage of e-mail marketing. By purchasing software products such as 1-2-All, you can send out unlimited mailings for nothing more than the cost of hosting. There is no need to pay per recipient or per impression as there would be with traditional direct mail or advertising programs. On a shoestring budget and in a relatively short amount of time, you can now achieve the type of reputation that would previously have required years of prohibitively expensive marketing effort.

One of the keys to success in e-mail marketing is to reduce the number of spam complaints that you receive. Spam complaints can hurt your standing with your ISP or hosting provider, and even prevent your messages from being delivered to millions of users of popular web e-mail providers such as Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo mail. In spite of these potentially very significant consequences, many businesses that rely on e-mail marketing as a major part of their advertising efforts fail to understand the steps that you can take to prevent spam complaints from being submitted.

The first and most important step you can take is to include an unsubscribe link in every message. Beyond this, the unsubscribe link should be two things: obvious and painless. It may seem counter intuitive to place a large and readily apparent unsubscribe link in your messages, but the fact is that people who enjoy your messages will ignore it anyway, and people who want to unsubscribe will do so quietly without causing you any grief. You also want a completely painless unsubscribe process. Ideally, a single click and it’s all done. The less complicated or frustrating this process is, the fewer spam complaints you are likely to get.

Another thing to keep in mind when you are sending out mailings is that the large mail providers use system-wide filters. This means that if a certain number of Hotmail users flag your messages as spam, it becomes more likely that your messages will be automatically routed to Hotmail users’ spam boxes. Most people never check their spam box for legitimate mail they might have missed, so your mailings will simply never be seen. This is why it’s very important to make your messages appear as legitimate as possible to your recipients.

The simplest way to do this is to optimize your subject headings. Each message’s subject line should make it exactly clear what the message contains, and in a professional manner. For our own newsletter, for example, we start each message’s subject with the text “ActiveCampaign News:” followed by a description of the individual newsletter, such as “Products Updates & New Services.” This makes it clear that you are receiving a newsletter from ActiveCampaign, and makes the recipient aware of the message’s purpose right away. There is much less chance that this will be mistaken for spam than if the message were titled something like “Great New Products!”

You can also help people to recognize your messages by using clear and predictable sender information, such as your company name, e-mail list name, or personal name, depending on what subscribers to your particular list would be likely to expect. Our company newsletter is addressed from “Company Name, Inc.” and is sent from the e-mail address info@ourdomainname.com, exactly as one might expect. If you maintain a mailing list called the “Dog Breeding Newsletter,” you would probably be better off using the list name as a From header rather than “XYZ Kennel” or “xyzkennel@somedomain.com”

Finally, you can avert many problems by simply reading and promptly replying to any complaints are requests that you receive by e-mail. If someone writes to you to ask that they be unsubscribed, it will be much better to simply remove them from the list rather than send them an unsubscribe link. You may also be able to retain a reader who otherwise may have unsubscribed by responding to concerns about mailing frequency, content, or other issues that may arise. By being responsive to your readers, you will build up profitable long-term relationships and benefit from their word of mouth.

One of our favorite mail transfer agents that we suggest is Qmail.  We find Qmail to be significantly faster than Sendmail (in most default scenarios) and quite easy for our clients to manage and optimize.

While there are numerous things you can do to improve sending speed of Qmail - one of the easiest is to adjust your concurrency settings.

There are a couple setting files that you will want to take a look at.  if you do not have these files you can try to create them.

• /var/qmail/control/concurrencyremote
  Usually is a default around 10 or 20. We suggest to increase this to 250 or above if your memory can handle it.   This is the file that you want to adjust.

• /var/qmail/control/concurrencylocal
  Usually is a default around 20 or 30.  You can increase this to a higher number. Please note however - when sending lots of mail (to users outside of your server) concurrencyremote will be the file you want to change.

The files should simply contain the number you wish to have for that concurrency type.  After you change the files (or create the files) you MUST restart the Qmail service on your server.  If you want to see the current settings that your Qmail is using you can run # /var/qmail/bin/qmail-showctl

There is a hard limit that is set when Qmail is built - so you do not want to go crazy with your concurrency settings.  Often you can push the concurrency up to 500 and in some default setups of Qmail you can go up to 1,000.  You should ensure that you have the memory/ram to back up your settings though.  If you set your concurrencyremote to several hundred be prepared for Qmail to start using up more memory as you send.

As with all server changes your results and performance will be heavilly affected by a combination of your settings, server resources, and other server settings that can affect your services.  I suggest to make minor changes and then monitor your sending speeds and adjust as needed.

We are now including a set of Spanish language files for KnowledgeBuilder.   A special thanks to Ramon for contributing this.

You can get the language files by downloading the latest version of KnowledgeBuilder.

Let us know if you have any questions!