DON'T do this

THE ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER ABOUT ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTERS
April 24, 2007

By Dan Harley, Jr. - danharley@primeconcepts.net

Hello to another week of stimulating information about e-mail marketing. My mailing list grows once again. Those of you reading my newsletter for the first time, I would like to direct your attention to the next article about why you’re receiving this newsletter and why I’m publishing it. I also continue to receive a steady flow of questions, which I’ll answer in the Q&A segment of this newsletter.

I was a speaker at Rotary District Assembly last Saturday, and I rocked as usual. I’m one of the weird people who actually love public speaking, and can’t wait to be in front of an audience. Although Rotary is a target rich environment for business referrals, I NEVER take advantage of such situations without first considering my ethics, morality and commitment to Rotary. That doesn’t mean that I don’t apply my e-mail marketing techniques in my Rotary affairs though. I just started a Yahoo Group so Rotarians within my district can communicate more easily with each other. Let me know if you want to know more about Rotary.

Some of you are taking my advice, and are already starting to apply it. However, there are a few steps in my advice that you’re still missing, which you get into trouble if you don’t have it right away. This week’s article is going to cover what not to do with e-mail marketing. If you read any article that I write, you need to read this one.

For those of you reading this for the first time, you can get filled in on what you missed by going to my blog. It has all of my previous articles, and can be found on my blog at:

http://primeconcepts.blogspot.com/

Let’s get started!


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
By Dan Harley, Jr. - danharley@primeconcepts.net

Q: What is the best joke site?
A: Ironically, this is a question that I’m not sure if I can answer. As funny as I am, I don’t look at joke sites all that much. I’m an America’s Funniest Videos cult fanatic, and I go to You Tube and Google Videos to quench my insatiable apatite for funny videos.

Q: What do you think about the communist government in Vietnam?
A: Before my first visit to Vietnam in recent times, I had thought much like everyone else had thought about communism and probably had good reason to never visit Vietnam, but my opinion has completely changed. Things may have been different in the past, but communism in Vietnam is not the big ugly monster that I was lead to believe through my life. Their government is very corrupt, and punishment can be very severe for things that are completely legal here. On the other hand, Vietnam experiences more freedom in some situations than we do as Americans. Chuck Searcy, who is Vietnam Veteran living in Hanoi right now, summed it up nicely. Communism is simply another form of government bureaucracy.

Q: How many e-newsletters do you have?
A: At my peak, I published six e-newsletters at one time. It was fun, but was a lot of work, because I usually created my own content for all of the publications. I whittled down to two publications before I started this newsletter, which would currently make three publications that I’m managing at this time.

Q: Have you tried using paid mailing lists?
A: Yes. I had been a reseller of Postmaster Direct (http://postmasterdirect.com) a few years ago, who sells opt-in mailing lists. Postmaster Direct has a strict policy of accepting only double opt-in subscription lists, which pays off in very high response rates. Response rates are usually 5%-10% with their mailing lists. Let me know if you want more information about this.

Keep sending those questions, and I’ll keep answering them!

WHAT YOU ABSOLUTELY DO NOT DO IN E-MAIL MARKETING
By Dan Harley, Jr.

Some of you have included me in your e-mail lists, and I now regularly receiving e-market material from my own readers. I am humbled to see many of you taking my advice and running with it. For those of you who haven’t done this yet, please include me in any of your subscription lists. I will do my best to critique your work so you can improve on what you’re doing.

A few of you are making a fatal mistake with your e-mailings, and I want to give you information so you can correct this immediately. So far, I’ve been giving you advice on how to use e-mail marketing by sending personalized or individual e-mails instead of broadcasting to a mailing list. The technique that I’ve shown you eliminates the possibility of being flagged for spamming, but there are different techniques that you need to use if you send bulk e-mail. You MUST use these techniques to protect your readers, let alone yourself, from spammers.

NEVER reveal your recipient’s e-mail addresses if you bulk-send to a mailing list. Always use BCC instead of CC or Recipient fields when you insert their e-mail addresses into your e-mail. Using BCC will hide your recipient’s e-mail addresses from others and especially from e-mail farmers who could sell such information to spammers.

NEVER send file attachments in your bulk e-mails unless you thoroughly check the attachment. Some of you are sending newsletters as a Word file to save time and trouble to reproduce it as e-mail. Word files are very susceptible to contacting viruses. If you must, create a PDF file and send the PDF file instead.

NEVER refer your recipients to a Web site without thoroughly checking it first. There is technology that can open a computer like a sardine can and infect it with a virus by just visiting a Web site, and you don't want to be blamed for screwing up a friend's computer.

Be careful with forwarding jokes, political statements, etc. E-mail farmers send chain e-mails through the Internet as jokes, political statements or surveys to collect e-mails when they receive their e-mail back. If you think it’s funny and you want others to know, make sure you rip out any e-mail addresses that were previously attached.

I’ll cover more of how to do bulk e-mailing next week. Until then, don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions on this.

E-MAIL MARKETING CASE STUDY
By Dan Harley, Jr.

This week’s case study is for anyone in the real estate industry. The real estate industry was my focus industry when I was working with a Web development company in San Diego many years ago, and I’ve done a lot of homework in that field. There are plenty of signs that the real estate industry has taken a turn for the worse right now, and it’s probably going to get even worse before it gets better. The readers who are in this field know this very well, because they are career realtors or brokers instead of the others who will be looking for gainful employment soon. Believe it or not, the change in the market and mass exodus of what had been your competition creates opportunity for you to capitalize on and to thrive.

As a career realtor or broker, you know how to get through the bad times by adjusting with the market. The market is becoming filled with foreclosures and those who want to get out of their properties before they get into trouble. You have privilege information that is valuable to others. I know of brokers who charge a subscription fee just to be on their foreclosure and pre-foreclosure mailing lists, and that should tell you how valuable such information is.

You can build a special mailing list very quickly by indicating that you will inform your subscribers about hot deals before you advertise it, which will give your subscribers an exclusive first look at hot real estate deals. Trust me on this, information on hot real estate deals get passed around the Internet faster than bad jokes do. This technique can be used by anyone in the real estate industry, but be careful that you don’t violate any disclosure laws.