The Web Marketing Strategy You Should Steer Clear Of

The Unwanted Email Avalanche

Late one Friday afternoon, I was taken aback to find nearly a thousand emails in my inbox. Over the next few days, this number would multiply. However, this wasn't the result of a successful promotion strategy. Instead, it was the fallout from a marketing tactic that should never be employed.

The flood of emails wasn't from potential customers or prospects. Instead, it was from irate internet users who had received unsolicited emails. The spam wasn't from me, but it caused a nightmare nonetheless, leading to the shutdown of the responsible site before they even realized their mistake.

The Downfall of a New Jersey Company

A company in New Jersey, new to the world of online marketing, decided to try their hand at "email marketing". They purchased an email list from a bulk email company, which was touted as "targeted email addresses", and had their host load it onto their server.

After sending out one email, their business was inundated with complaints from angry recipients. Not long after, their website was shut down, all because of one email message.

The Domino Effect

My problems began when the spam hit my autoresponders. My "Welcome to the Bizweb eGazette" autoresponder appeared on the list no less than 17 times. This autoresponder was used when new subscribers asked to be added to my newsletter.

The list of 30,000 addresses had been set up as an unmoderated discussion, allowing every angry spam recipient to reply to the entire list. This snowballed the problem into a mass of junk mail in seconds. When my autoresponder replied to the list of 30,000 angry spam recipients over and over with "thanks for subscribing", many of the spam victims assumed I was the culprit in the whole mess.

The Lesson for Newbies

No matter how tempting it may seem to buy an email list and "broadcast targeted email to thousands", it is a trap. It only takes one message to shut your site down. These bulk email CDs are promoted as "millions of targeted addresses" and are often dirt cheap, making them even more tempting. However, nearly every bulk email list comes with a few features you are NOT being told about.

• None of the addresses on these spam lists have asked to be there. In fact, none of the email addresses on those lists even realize they are on them and they have not opted in to receive email solicitations.
• By "targeted" addresses, these list hawkers mean they entered keywords into an email address harvesting program and the program loaded thousands of addresses from sites with that keyword somewhere in their pages.
• A huge percentage of people on those lists will complain to every ISP, host, and agency they can, which will shut your site down in a heartbeat.
• The user of a bulk email list is the one liable for damages that result. There is now legislation against sending unsolicited email.

The Safe and Effective Strategy

The best way to stay out of trouble is simple - never email anyone without their permission. And never trust a company that sells email addresses. If you think there is a chance that the addresses are truly opt-in, ask for a list of satisfied advertisers before you buy the list. Contact each and every one of them and ask about their results using the list.

When it comes to marketing with email, your best bet is to build your own email lists. You can do this by offering free reports, email newsletters, email courses, downloadable ebooks, shareware, or anything else that contains valuable information related to your area of expertise. In exchange for the free service you offer, you simply ask for the user's name and email address.

Setting up an interface at your site to collect names and email addresses and deliver your free product automatically takes as little as ten minutes. Once you set it up, your own opt-in lists will grow continually. You'll never have to even consider using spam! This strategy is 100 times as effective.