The first thing you should know about building your online network through a newsletter is how not to look like a spammer.
Anyone who has an email inbox knows that clogging it up with unwanted messages is the quickest way to infuriate the very people you want to reach.
At the end of this review, you’ll find a list of email services to choose from. Although they vary in prices and features, most bulk email services offer tools designed to help you get your messages out, while complying with both Federal laws and “netiquette.”
By law, you must offer everyone on an email list an easy way to ‘get off your list’ and you must include a postal address in any commercial email messages. The goal of this legislation is to make legitimate mass emailers accountable, and try to stop all the unwanted sales pitches for the latest ‘enhancement products’.
So, as I go through the process of creating my own email list, my social media tip this week is to consider creating an email newsletter (if you haven’t already) and to make sure you do it in a way that won’t get your emails caught in spam blockers.
Perhaps even more important, using a service such as MailChimp, makes it easy for people to sign up for your newsletter and reassures them that you’ll protect their email addresses and treat them with respect.
An email full of useful tips sent to a list of followers is a great way to keep people coming back to your web site and keep them engaged with your books, services, and expertise.
As with just about everything I’ve ever done on the Internet, my first task this week was to research email newsletter services on the market. You can learn more about How to choose a bulk email newsletter program here, or you can go directly to my comparison chart of these popular mail programs: MailChimp, ConstantContact, iContact, AWeber, and BenchMark.
How avoid legal trouble with bulk email
1. You can’t use false or misleading information in the header area of an email. You can’t claim that the email is about dogs and cats in the subject line and then try to sell the recipient guinea pigs in the message. You may be suprised by this because spammers do it all the time (but many do get caught and fined, and even more get blocked by spam filters for the practice).
2. Make sure the email address you use in the “From field” of the message is your legitimate address, and any addresses you display in the “to” field are real.
3. You must provide an opt-out method, meaning there must be an easy way for recipients to let you know they don’t want to receive any more messages from you, and you must remove them from your list if they do. With a large email list, this can be a time-consuming process — but if you don’t do it, you can get in big trouble.
This is one of the best reasons to use a service like the ones described above. All these services provide a contact manager where you can easily manage all your email addresses, and those who ‘opt out’ can be automatically removed.
4. You cannot sell or transfer the email addresses of people who have chosen not to receive your email, and you cannot help any other entity send them messages (even if you don’t charge for the service).
5. All commercial email must be identified as an advertisement and must include the sender’s postal address.
Until next week,
Janine