E-mail marketers - please, do these basics (rant)

6 replies
I've been a bit frustrated with my inbox lately but tonight has taken the cake. If you're going to do email marketing, for the sake of your readers, please, at least do the following:

1 - belong to all of your lists so that if something goes wrong you will know about it and can fix it quickly. I have been getting the same email every 20 minutes for the last 5 hours. If this marketer belonged to his own list he would have found out long before I sent him an exasperated email that this was happening and he could have fixed it.

2 - cross check your lists. Many people have multiple lists from multiple sources so, particularly if you're in the IM niche, it's not unlikely that one person is going to end up on more than one list. You can help not annoy them with multiple emails by cross checking your list before you send it and removing any duplicates. I must be on one guy's list 3 times because I get every email 3 times and each time has a slightly different title so I know it's not a mistake.

3 - change it up. When you're promoting something like a giveaway or a product launch you're competing with a lot of people. If you are using the exact same email content as them it's annoying enough but to use the exact same title is just lazy and when I get 10 emails in 10 minutes from 10 people all with the same title I don't even open it. I just highlight them all and press delete. If you can't take 2 seconds to come up with a title why should I read your canned email?

Thanks for letting me vent.
#basics #email #marketers #rant
  • Profile picture of the author dsmpublishing
    I totally agree i am on all of my lists just to make sure that everything is been sent out properly. I use the same list for all of my free ebooks/reports/software etc and then i can limit the amount of people that end up on multiple lists. I met one guy recently that said he was subscribed to a gurus list 30 times because whenever he saw a new free report he subscribed and how many other people are in the same boat?

    It means that your list is no longer as good because a person is hardly going to buy the ebook you are offering five times they are more likely to get annoyed. So i have a memberszone so that when i do create new viral reports they are all in one place and my subscribers only have to subscribe once for them.

    kind regards


    sam
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  • Profile picture of the author TLTheLiberator
    Good advice especially for those operating in the IM niche.

    I get multiple emails from lots of people but it does not bother me one bit.

    TL
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    "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled. -- Mark Twain

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  • Profile picture of the author kevinpotts
    Great points of advice to follow.

    That someone gets your promotion email every 20 minutes it's gonna draw him/her away.

    The point in all of this is be very careful with how you handle the way you possible customers are being treated.

    Thanks for the good adivices!

    K.
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  • Profile picture of the author Raydal
    As you said it comes down to laziness. The technology is
    available that allows anyone to avoid the same person
    getting multiple copies of the same message, but if you
    don't use it then it won't work.

    And the cut and paste JV emails only annoys people anyway.
    So adapt.

    -Ray Edwards
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    The most powerful and concentrated copywriting training online today bar none! Autoresponder Writing Email SECRETS
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  • Profile picture of the author Frank Donovan
    Originally Posted by vagabondette View Post

    I must be on one guy's list 3 times because I get every email 3 times and each time has a slightly different title so I know it's not a mistake.
    What I find perplexing is that these duplicate lists must make it almost impossible to accurately split test your headings.

    A few months back, a well-known IMer made a big deal of how a particular subject headline resulted in a higher than average open rate. Yet I consistently get 3 or 4 identical emails from this person every mailout - just with slightly different headings. Once I realize they're all going to be the same content, I just delete the duplicate emails unopened and I'd bet many others do the same. If he's split-testing his subject lines, the data is going to be skewed.

    Cleaning your mailing lists is just good, basic business practice. There really should be no excuse for such sloppiness.


    Frank
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    • Profile picture of the author vagabondette
      Originally Posted by Frank Donovan View Post

      What I find perplexing is that these duplicate lists must make it almost impossible to accurately split test your headings.
      Yes, this is what I don't get. The duplicates have to be skewing your open rate so you think you'd want to get rid of the duplicates. I know on Aweber it's easy, just one click. I can't imagine any of the other autoresponders that people with big lists use are any different.

      Oh well, at least the email ever 20 minutes stopped. But this morning I woke up to the following emails:

      4 - WTH/F It's almost gone already
      5 - Download your new software business today
      3 - 9/17/09 your payment at 8 am Urgent

      And those are just the ones that were sent close enough to the same time that they are next to each-other in my in-box. From now on I'm going to do a sort by title first thing in the morning and remove anything that appears more than once
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