The Golden Rule of Online Marketing: Thou Shalt Not Spam
A lot of non-marketers think of marketers as nothing but spammers. It’s easy to understand why. We all get mountains of spam emails o a daily basis – regardless of whether or not we gave out the email address.
But unless you want to be prosecuted and condemned for sending spam emails out, you’ll want to take precautions to be careful about who you email and why. Spam is defined as unsolicited email messages that are sent out to the masses.
True Internet marketers don’t mess with spam because it hurts their credibility, risks their accounts, and doesn’t convert as well as targeted, welcomed email does. You can have your ISP ban you for sending spam, and you can lose your autoresponder account, too.
It’s far better to use an opt-in form where people willingly enter their first name and email address. In fact, it’s best to utilize the double opt in option most autoresponders provide.
A single opt in is when you just let the person enter their information once. But what’s to stop one person from going around entering another person’s contact information for unethical reasons?
You want a double opt in to protect yourself. Here’s how it works:
The user lands on your website and sees an opt in box, asking for their first name and email address. They enter it (usually in exchange for a free download or the promise of information at a later date).
Then the autoresponder tool automatically sends out a verification email. The end user gets the email alerting them that they’ve signed up to be on your list, but it asks them to verify their subscription by clicking on a link in the email.
This means if someone goes to your site and signs someone else up, that person will get a notification and have the option to decline if they weren’t the ones who really opted into the list
Make sure you abide by permission marketing standards. These people trust you enough to hand over important details, so don’t sell their contact information or abuse it in any way. If you respect the people on your list, it will grow and you’ll have a readymade list of prospects that can help you earn more money on both a short and long-term timeframe.
