A Beginners Guide to ISP Inbox Delivery

This is a guide in helping you to avoid your emails be sent to a bulk or spam folder and what to consider in minimizing complaints.

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We’ve discussed blacklisting, I wanted to spend some time looking at where the rubber hits the road for email delivery: the ISP inbox.

Let’s be very clear about this for consumer facing campaigns there are 4 major ISP’s that manage the majority of consumer inboxes.

  • MSN/Hotmail
  • Yahoo Mail
  • AIM Mail
  • Gmail

What Does this Mean?

Basically unless each of these mail platforms relays your message to the primary folder, your email campaign is far from optimized.

What Causes mail to be delivered to a bulk/spam Folder?
All of these ISP’s allow their users to report spam with a report spam button. The ISP uses this feedback to create a profile for your mail. If users are reporting your mail as spam you will run into problems.

What can I do to make sure I do not create ISP Spam complaints? 
AOL recommends keeping spam complaints below 1-3 percent of traffic, depending on volume. This figure is unique to AOL’s user base; it’s too generous when applied as a general standard. Be at or below the range of one complaint per 6,000 to 8,000 messages, or 0.013 percent.

Minimize Complaints

Minimizing complaints always starts with practices used to collect e-mail addresses. It should be obvious by now sending unsolicited e-mail only gets you in trouble. Mailing lists with the lowest complaint rates are either confirmed opt-in or properly managed single opt-in. If you have a solid permission-based list but still find incoming complaints are higher than the optimal rate or are rising, consider the following:

+ Brand your subject lines.

Mail systems with spam complaint buttons offer it at the inbox level. A recipient need only to scan subject lines and decide which messages not to delete immediately. A subject line such as “Exciting offers for you, Bob!” will surely be marked as spam. Consider using your company or newsletter name in brackets at the beginning of your subject lines.

+ Consider including unsubscribe instructions at the top of your e-mail, in addition to the footer.

Some users use the “report spam” button as an unsubscribe method and won’t scroll through an entire message to find that link.

+ Include instructions for users to whitelist your domain.

This prevents a user-based filter from mistaking your message for spam and either diverting it to the spam folder or prefixing “[SPAM]” to the subject of the message.

+ Provide a preference update page.

Disclose how your organization will use a subscriber’s e-mail addresses, and how often. Allow subscribers to select preferences on the opt-in form, and link from e-mail to a preference or profile update page.

+ Avoid spammy looking content.

Try not to use garish, bold fonts; large, red letters, and the like. Avoid images with poor compression quality. A clean, readable design isn’t as likely to be mistaken for spam.

+ Don’t over e-mail.

If recipients expect to receive a few informational e-mail messages each month from your company, don’t suddenly start sending two or three each week.

+ Don’t send unexpected e-mail.

If subscribers opted in to receive your “Trends & Tips” newsletter, don’t send them your hard-sell e-commerce messages, unless they clearly requested them.

+ Include opt-in information.

If possible, add to your e-mail admin area information, such as the subscriber’s e-mail address, date of opt-in, and how she potentially subscribed (product registration, white paper download form, sweepstakes entry, etc). With many subscribers receiving dozens of commercial e-mail messages daily, it’s easy to forget signing up for your newsletter — and then to file a complaint.

Following these guidelines should help you to avoid being bulk foldered by the main ISP?s.

Top 3 Reasons Why You Should Love Unsubscribes

If you are like most new marketers you just dread logging into your autoresponder and seeing that you have lost list members due to them unsubscribing. Well I am here to tell you three good reasons to look forward to getting unsubscribes.

The first is that you are actually using your list. The only way that I have ever seen to not get an unsubscribe is to never send an email. If you are not going to use the list why go to the time and effort to build it. So congratulate your self when you get the unsubscribe because you are actually using your list.

The second thing is that someone is opening your email. To unsubscribe they had to at least open the email and click the unsubscribe link. The good thing is that your headline worked and got them to open your email. Now if you are using dishonest headlines, (You have won, your account status, and other headlines along those lines) this is not a good thing and you are reaping what you have sown. If you are using a solid headline that matches your email and it gets opened this is a good thing. Your headline is doing its job.

The third good reason to be glad to get unsubscribes has to do with personality. Now here is a shocker (said with sarcasm dripping from the keyboard) Not everyone is going to like you or your writing style. Those that don’t will unsubscribe. The good thing though is that if they don’t care for your style you will never build a relationship with them. If you can’t build a relationship with them they will most likely never buy from you. So each unsubscribe will make your list more targeted to people who actually like your style and are more likely to respond favorably to your offers that meet their needs.

So now you have three good reasons to no longer dread seeing that people have decided to unsubscribe from your list. Rejoice in the fact that you are actually making your list stronger and more profitable for you in the longer run.

Auto Responders: The Marketers Magic Trick

Imagine if John (an avid poker player) visits your website. You sell a book that helps him improve his poker game. He’s highly interested in what you have to offer, but he’s just not ready to purchase yet. He’s still recovering from that extended holiday and needs to pay off the credit card that he maxed out playing poker online.

He sees a form on your site asking if he’d like more detailed information, and so he fills in his name and email address. Within seconds an email is sent to John with a short summary of the benefits offered by your book and a couple of useful tips he can use right away.

A few days later, John receives another email that goes something like this:

“Hey John, I know you’re quite busy, especially with the holiday period coming to an end, but I just wanted to get in touch with you to let you know we’ve got a special coming up for that ‘How to win at poker’ handbook you’ve always wanted.”

John’s forgotten that he’d been looking to buy a book like this and this email reminds him that he needs to improve his game. John adds buying the handbook to his “To Do” list and goes about his daily business.

Another few days later, John receives another email; again, reminding him that the special is about to end alongside another juicy tip that’s in the book. John realizes he doesn?t have much time now, and goes off to purchase your “How to win at poker” handbook.

Every email sent to John was automated. You didn’t have to wait for him to subscribe, you didn’t have to personally address John, nor did you have to send him an email every few days.

The example above shows how a series of autoresponder emails can be used as a powerful ?hands off? marketing tool for your web site.

Now, take a few minutes and think to yourself, “How can I use autoresponders on my web site?”

No, seriously. Stop and think. This simple exercise could easily add another stream of revenue to your web site that you didn’t know existed.

But I don’t sell anything online!

Autoresponders can work for ANY business. You don’t need to be selling something online for them to work. For example, let?s pretend you have a hair styling business. You cater towards young men looking for a modern, attractive hair style. Part of your service includes helping them select a hair style that greatly enhances their facial features and gets them the compliments they’re after from the ladies.

On your website, you setup a simple form, something like: “Guys, get the hair style that’ll get you noticed. Free email report shows you how.”

Once John’s filled in the form, he gets an email with a summary of tips about the type of hair style suited for men with different features. It also mentions that you’re an expert in this field and your salon regularly helps men go from dud to stud in less than an hour.

A few days later, John receives yet another tip — this time on how washing his hair with a different shampoo can lead to different results. John starts to see how much of an expert you are, but also how much he’d rather just pay someone to take care of all this for him. He hasn’t got much time now since he’s started killing those poker sites. And so off he goes to call and make an appointment at your salon.

What else should I know?

The content in your autoresponders need to be useful. Whilst including marketing hype purely about your product and services can work if there is a strong interest, you’ll usually need to provide relevant tips and information to keep your subscriber engaged and ready to pull out their wallet when need be.

You should opt to use autoresponder software that offers personalization, which includes the ability to address John by his first name, as that greatly increases response rates.

Finally, you should TEST your autoresponders. Make sure they aren’t trapped by spam filters, make sure the subscribers are receiving the autoresponders in the order they’re meant to be and so forth.

Armed with this new knowledge, you should be able to add an additional stream of revenue that could do some serious boosting to your profits. Some online businesses use this single marketing strategy as the sole way of getting new clients. They do this because it works!

Now, have you decided how you’re going to use autoresponders for your business?

Autoresponders – Do I Need One?

How would you feel if you could send out all the information that your potential customers have requested without checking your email?….sound good?.!While this may seem impossible, it is becoming more and more popular among the most successful internet marketing people. And the reason for this: an Autoresponder!

An Autoresponder is an automatic method of responding to emails sent by existing or potential customers and is a must for any Internet Business or organization. Time is money and answering e-mails personally takes far too much of your already valuable time for you and your customers. Autoresponders allow you to spend this time on other important aspects of your business whilst the customer receives the information required almost immediately

Because of the versatility of Autoresponders they can be used by practically any type of business. Answering questions about products and services, providing information on pricing and delivery including being used to welcome new customers to your website and thanking them for visiting.

Why use an Autoresponder? When you can list the information on your site?..the advantage is that they send you notification each time a response is sent out allowing you to track the success of your promotions that your conducting. Plus e-mail addresses of possible customers so that you can post update and new information to them.

It is crucial to choose the right one. An autoresponder should enable you to be as personal as etiquette allows in sending out follow ups to all potential customers as persistence has been proven to pay off. It often takes as many as 7 e-mails before any sale in finalised. In some cases the customers have asked for specific information and therefore an Autoresponder should allow unlimited space for the text to do this. But generally speaking advertisement should be short, direct and to the point.

Autoresponders are one of the important internet marketing tools that should not cost a lot in terms of value for money. There are free autoresponders available online from many sources, although generally speaking a greater range of facilities are offered by the paid for programs.

Finally the automatic responses of the autoresponder will add to your business strategy and increase traffic to your site day and night whilst you do nothing. Just make sure that the one you finally select supplies you with all your requirements you need enabling you increase business profitability and internet standing.

The Truth About Mailing List Advertising

Are you fond of lists or not? I think that I am. It hasn’t been anything that I’ve been explicitly fostering or anything. I can think back about some pretty about solid lists that I made in detention with friends, like ’13 Ways to Squash Pete Gomash’. To this day it’s not unlike me to call up a friend and initially bullet a list of ‘important’ subjects to be discussed and the order that I’d prefer they were taken up. I do the same thing with emails. And scribbling down my name on the mailing lists for CalSurf and 7th St. Entry virtually changed my life in 8th grade.

But they were the type of mailing list advertisements that necessitated self initiated action by the consumer. Mailing lists, especially online, and my unwanted participation has multiplied themselves like the rats my sister used to keep in our backyard. When I find it considerate for a company to offer me an opt-out choice in the small print, I know that something has gone awry. But what is it that is at the root of mailing list advertising’s current problematic nature?

I think it all started in 1789 with a kindly chap by the name of Adam Smith. I believe Mr. Smith’s ideas on human nature and utilizing those inherent urges in the form of competition in order to raise the general well-being of society, really were intended with good intentions. However, unintended consequences have resulted from the laissez-faire approach to markets that Mr. Smith proposed.

My intention here isn’t to consider the economic implications of a liberalized market economy, but rather the socio-psychological. What effects are brought upon a community that has from birth the invaluable merits of competition thrust upon them? It is my contention that the results are an extreme difficulty in combining the actions of community mindedness with personal gain at any cost.

I can’t blame a single person of firm for behaving in exactly the manner in which the system that they operate has taught them, but I feel that a re-examination of our system is much over due. Mailing list advertising that gives not an iota of consideration to the unwelcoming client is simply a product of its environment and I think the environment needs to change.

Top 5 Tips For Effective Email Marketing

Over the past few years, research has continued to prove the benefits of e-mail marketing for business: low costs, high conversion rates and detailed tracking are all notable features. But e-mail marketing is becoming much more than just a tool for spammers and e-businesses. Consumers are becoming increasingly savvy on the differences between spam and permission-based emails, and more and more of them are accepting permission-based e-mail marketing as a positive replacement for direct mail.

The best news is that the majority of people who receive permission-based e-mails open, on average, 78% of them.

Jupiter Research reports effective email marketing campaigns can produce nine times the revenues and 18 times the profits of broadcast mailings. But crafting an effective business email is both an art and a science.

Here is a list of factors, potential problems and effective solutions to keep in mind:

1. Spam! Spam! Spam! I don’t need any Viagra!
The average consumer receives more than 300 emails a week, 62% of which are spam. No wonder there’s such hostility towards the industry. But spam filters, bulk folders and “report spam” features are helping consumers become more at ease about the perils of spam. While 89% of users cited spam as a major concern in 2003, that number dropped to 85% in 2004, proportionally to an increase in the use of spam-fighting tools.

So as a permission-based business email marketer, what can you do? One tip is to remind your subscribers to add you to their “safe senders” list. The second, and most important, tactic is to make sure your email marketing service provider has a good relationship with ISPs. This will ensure that your email marketing campaigns go into your subscribers’ inboxes, not their junk mail folders. When choosing an email marketing software, make sure the company has strict anti-spam policies and complies with the guidelines of Can-Spam.

2. Images and formatting: Why do my emails look broken?
Broken email campaigns are an increasing concern among email marketers, especially since several companies and web-based email providers now block graphics as a measure to combat spam. In fact, according to ClickZ, 40% of email marketing messages delivered to inboxes are “broken.”

So what’s the solution? Some email marketing programs publish all your sent email campaigns to a secure location on the web (a location only original recipients of the email can access, thanks to encrypted technology that automatically authenticates the user). In some programs, the technology also ensures you can track your users’ behaviors, even if they are reading your email campaign at the secure web location.

3. Personalization and relevant content: In a business e-mail, one size does not fit all.
In a recent study by DoubleClick, email users were 72% more likely to respond to a business e-mail if its content was based on the interests they had specified. That number points out the absolute importance of allowing users to choose their own interest groups and have control over which business e-mails they receive. The most popular interest categories, according to the study, are coupons and household goods.

But you’re coupon is no good unless the user opens the email. Users in the study said the most compelling reason for them to open a business email is the name in the “from” field. So it’s a good idea to make sure your company name is clearly stated there. Another major factor is the “subject” line. Users cite discount offers and interesting news as the most compelling subject lines, followed by new product announcements and free shipping offers.

4. Click-through and conversion: Show me the money!
So the user has opened your email and read the content. Great. But where’s the sale? There’s good news here. For one, consumers are increasingly likely to make purchases as a direct result of a business email campaign. One-third of users in the DoubleClick study had purchased something by clicking a link on an email. Another 42% clicked on an email link for more information, then purchased the product at a later time. Second, online couponing is booming: 73% of consumers have redeemed an online coupon for an online purchase, and 59% have redeemed an online coupon offline.

In terms of industries, the top performers are travel, hardware/software, electronics, apparel, food, home furnishings, gifts/flowers and sporting goods. All companies sending business emails in those categories said between 71% and 80% of recipients have purchased their products because of an email campaign.

There’s no need to fret if your company doesn’t fit in to one of those industries. The overall landscape for email marketing conversions is looking brighter every day. The average click-to-purchase rate has increased nearly 30% since 2004 and the average orders-per-email-delivered rate has increased more than 18% since last year.

5. Stats tracking: Who are my real consumers?
E-mail marketing is an increasingly popular tool in effective CRM, and it’s about time more businesses recognize that. First off, if your provider’s email services for business do not include detailed, real-time tracking, you’re getting a raw deal. Real-time tracking is now an industry standard, and it’s highly valuable, as it allows you to see the exact moment a user opens your campaign, clicks on your link and makes that purchase. Studying your users can help you improve your communications efforts, so each campaign performs better than the last (several email service providers also let you compare the performance of your campaigns).

But many marketers are still in the dark. According to a recent WebTrends research, only 5% of marketers are very confident in the measurement of their online marketing efforts, while 26% admit they’re “flying blind.” WebTrends says the low confidence comes from a lack of knowledge when it comes to measurement, which means there’s still a lot of work to be done.

In email marketing, a blind shot won’t take you very far. If you aim properly by following these essential rules of play, you should soon be reaping the same major results as so many online and offline businesses.

Achieve the Right Tone in Your Email Messaging

Are your email messages too casual? Or, are they too formal? Are you using the right tone in your email messaging?

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Email messages are different from typed letters. You can’t be too formal in a letter. In an email, too formal looks silly. What’s the appropriate tone for an email? — slightly more casual than a letter. Yet, there’s a fine line between being too relaxed and too stiff.

To some degree, the attitude and culture of your company will dictate the amount of formality necessary. For example, floral shops and hotels won’t be as formal as a bank or law firm.

As you compose the message, consider the person who will be reading it. Know your audience.

The job gets easier when you’re replying to a message. You can already see the tone of the sender. All you have to do is match that tone.

When in doubt, strive for a tone that is professional, yet conversational. One easy way to achieve a conversational tone is to use contractions (I’ll, we’ll, he’s, she’s).

Also, it’s acceptable to use pronouns. In conversation, we use the words I, we, you. So, use these in emails. For example, ‘It is suggested . . . ‘ sounds very stiff. Instead, try, ‘I suggest . . .’

Be careful with the pronoun ‘I’. Using too many can be perceived as egotistical. You don’t want to appear pompous. If you notice an abundance of ‘I’s, try rewriting every other sentence. This will create variety, and that pesky personal pronoun won?t be as obvious.

Email is a great form of communicating. Just remember that your old typed-letter writing style should be adapted so your messages don?t sound stilted and stiff. On the other hand, email is NOT a license to be sloppy. The most effective email messages find a happy balance. They have a conversational tone.

Tracking your emails with mailtracking.com

Email security is important issue today in the business world. I recently signed up for a service which allows me to see exactly what happens to my emails after they leave my outbox and how the information in my email is being used.

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I’m going to tell you about a great service I use a lot and I’d like to see you use it too. Its free and it has lots of benefits and advantages.

It is to be found at mail-tracking and once you sign up for it and start using it you will understand its benefits real well.

If you use it and send me an email (for example) you will get a report back that tells you when I opened your email, how long it took me to read it and if I open it, read it and close it then open it again later it will also tell you that.

If I were to forward your email to anyone else it would tell you I did that, when that person opened it and how long they took to read it.

There are other bells and whistles too. You can do a pretty fair job of customization once you get into the configuration menus.

The one thing you want to watch out for is that you don’t demand that I send you an email receipt for opening your emails. Some of you do that now and I never hit the send button. The reason I don’t acknowledge receipt is that my firewall won’t let me do it for some strange reason. With mail-tracking you don’t need that because you are going to get a receipt anyway.

Now then, let me explain the whys and wherefores bit more. Let us assume that you send me an email and I don’t answer it. Why would I ignore your emails? Well, I usually wouldn’t but sometimes when deleting some to the junk emails I get a ?key bounce? effect and more than one email gets deleted. The one that got unintentionally deleted might very well have been your email. I probably would not have any way of responding to you since I don’t keep email address books because of the virus problems.

Then maybe I don’t get back to you because I’m extremely busy from time to time and your email gets shoved down the stack of constantly incoming emails and goes by unnoticed, and you don’t get the service we both want you to have.

Now then, with mail tracking you know exactly when I opened your email or if I didn’t even open it. You know that I want to give you the very best service possible and you know that I want to get your email answered within 24 hours if at all possible. That means that if I don’t answer you within 24 hours something has gone wrong. What might have gone wrong? As we all know, anything can go wrong with email. You make a typo and I don’t get it but for whatever reason you don’t get a mailer daemon return from it, So there you sit, getting madder by the hour. And I am oblivious to what has happened.

If you use a mail-tracking service lots of that frustration can be eliminated. You can send me another email if I don’t answer within 24 hours so you can be sure to get my attention and some action going for you.

If I open the email you will know when I opened it and if I don’t get back to you within 24 hours you will know it is time to start calling me or asking me what for and why.

Use it for sending email to other businesses for the same reasons. Use it with friends, relatives and whoever for the same reasons. It isn’t about trying to track them down or stalk anyone although you could come pretty close with the pro version I use. I could not use it to find your house and actually drive right up to your front door except by accident. In order to actually do that I would have to know your actual address but lacking that I could drive right up to your door, sit there in front of your house and look around me and wonder which house was really yours and not know I was sitting right in front of it. And why on earth would I want to do that anyway?

I use it because I want to know that you got what I sent you and so why wouldn’t you use it for the same reason?

I think it can be used when sending payments by paypal too. I’d like you to start trying to use it when sending in a payment. That would make sure you sent it to example1@netzero.net and not to example@netzero.com or some other bad address and if you did that you would have a way to track the mistake and get your money back faster so you can send it to the right address.

You don’t even have to sign up for their service to start using it. All you have to do is send an email to someone such as ceo@creditwrench.mailtracking.com and the mail-tracker will immediately pick up on that and send you back a confirmation telling you that they opened a free temporary account for you. Then you can follow the links in that and go sign up and customize your settings and start using it.

Security and service are important to all of us and tools help make life easier.

Anti-Spammers Need To Develop Better Manners

I sent my e-zine out last week and I received a copy of it back. It had been forwarded to me by a subscriber. In the subject line was a two word sentence; since most publications and websites frown upon vulgarity, obscenity, and profanity, I have spared you the exact wording. Be assured, however, that Miss Manners would definitely not approve.

It is understandable the frustration that people feel when they are inundated with unsolicited commercial e-mail. I myself get more than my fair share.

Despite my Internet Service Provider (ISP) enabling a spam filter and in spite of configuring my own e-mail program filters, I still get spam.

However, the situation with my subscriber is different. He opted in and confirmed his subscription. I use an outside service to handle my mailing lists, in part, to protect myself from false spam complaints.

There are a number of possibilities here. Perhaps my dear subscriber forgot that he subscribed and honestly believed that he received spam.

Another possibility is that he didn’t enjoy the content. The correct response when someone offers you something you don’t want is “No, thank you” not “Expletive deleted”.

If you are offered dessert after dinner by your host and you don’t want any, simply say “No, thanks.” If you accept one piece of pie and then you’re offered another, you may either accept or decline.

My subscriber could simply have unsubscribed. Instead, he retaliated (either because he believes I’m spamming him or he doesn’t like the newsletter).

He said “yes” when he subscribed; he can always say “no” by unsubscribing. Again, “No, thank you” not “Expletive deleted”.

Related to this rudeness is the ignorance some America Online, Inc. (AOL) subscribers show. By ignorance, I mean that they may not even realize they are doing anything wrong when they report e-mail they don’t like as spam.

AOL makes it very easy for their subscribers to report spam. I would say they make it too easy.

Just click the button “Report Spam”. Unfortunately, there is no notation near that button that says “If you subscribed, just unsubscribe.” No, simply “Report Spam.”

And they do. Rather than unsubscribe, some AOL subscribers will report your e-zine as spam. They opted in and subscribed. They confirmed their subscription by e-mail. Their name, e-mail address, IP address, and date and time of subscribing have all been recorded. But, they are reporting you as a spammer.

This, to me, goes beyond rude, as it could affect the reputation and livelihood of the one being reported.

I wish I could say that receiving obscenities or threats by e-mail is rare. Sadly, this is not the first time for me.

Among the many messages I receive are some that say that the e-mail I tried to send (from some strange or nonsensical name at my domain) was undeliverable or blocked and is being returned to me. Of course, I never sent that e-mail in the first place.

Occasionally, I receive rude (sometimes threatening) e-mails from people who thought I sent them some of these spoofed e-mails. This is the equivalent of swearing at and threatening someone who you believe allowed his dog to defecate on your lawn. The only problem is that the man doesn’t have a dog.

Again, I sympathize with those who are irritated by spam. I just wish they would direct their indignation at the spammers instead of me. In fact, Miss Manners would have reminded us all that there is never any excuse for rudeness.

Top Secrets Of Profitable Email Lists Revealed

Do you want to know how to build and maintain a responsible email list? Learn some of the top secrets and build up your profitable mailing list?

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Building a good email list of customers or partners forms is the integral part of doing business in long term. All websites cannot make it to the top of the search results of major search engines. Building a mailing list of interested customers can evade many of the ill effects of not getting to the top of search listings. With a little effort you can collect the email addresses of potential customers. But to build a good mailing list, you need to give something before you get the email addresses. You can offer free tips related to the products you sell or careful advice regarding the service you give. Offering a free e-book with useful information is also a good method of building a business mailing list.

With the stringent laws to fight the big enemy called spam, business houses need to take extreme care that the emails they send out don’t fall to the category of spam mails. You need to implement good measures for careful email list management. With each email you send out, you need to provide an ‘unsubscribe’ or ‘opt out’ option. This is mandatory by the rule of the land.

Managing a business mailing list is always going to be a tough task. Updating, omissions, categorization of the list is necessary. While building an email list or mailing list, the categorization based on location, products and the income stream of the potential customers is important. New enterprises always shall take time to develop a profitable mailing list.

While maintaining a mailing list, it is always necessary to send only targeted mails according to the preferences and interests of the receivers. If you use the mailing list only to promote your products, chances are higher that the receivers will opt out of your business mailing list. Mailing list management is also about sending out useful tips and information that is important for the receiver.

Building a long mailing list from which you can reap profits is a time consuming task. You need to do some search engine optimization works so that your website appears in front of the interested users while they make a search. Give a solid reason for the visitors to sign up for your periodic newsletter. Make the suggestion that you regularly come up with useful suggestions, tips and techniques related to their field of interest.

The spending capacity of the individuals, geographic location, preferences of making online purchases etc need to be assessed to gauge the efficiency of your mailing list.

Giving enough stress to building a strong email list through which you can promote your products or affiliate products somehow minimizes your dependency on costly pay per click advertising to attract traffic to your site. All the receivers may not make a purchase every time you send out an offer. You can also go without a minimum number of sales if you maintain a strong mailing list of qualified customers.

Article Copyright: 2006 Andreas Obermueller