Paula G. Web Design

As long as you’re not living under a rock and actually use the Internet and e-mail (and if you didn’t you wouldn’t be reading this!) you have fallen victim to SPAM.  It is the equivalent of Junk Mail in your mailbox but worse — it comes in droves.  What’s worse is that for people using e-mail for marketing, you need to be worried about your valid e-mails being irretrievably lost in someone’s SPAM bin, being blocked, or being labeled as a spammer yourself.

The CAN-SPAM Act was passed into Federal Law in 2003 for the following purpose:

To regulate interstate commerce by imposing limitations and penalties on the transmission of unsolicited commercial electronic mail via the Internet.

Meaning, there was now a way to define and penalize those who engage in spam activities.

So, what does that mean for you using e-mail as a valid marketing tool?  After all, you’re not harvesting e-mail addresses,  sending bogus claims, or sending unsolicited junk.  (I hope!) How can  you make sure you are in compliance?

The CAN-SPAM implications are one of my favorite reasons for recommending everyone sending e-mail newsletters use a professional system.  They are set up to comply with CAN-SPAM and all the opt-in requirements.  It makes it easy for you to ensure you are in compliance and prove so in the event there is a dispute.

One of my preferred e-mail broadcasting and autoresponder systems is Aweber.  They have a great little FAQ entitled “What is the CAN-SPAM Act?”.

In it  they excerpt this important piece from the regulation:

According to CAN-SPAM, all email messages must:

• Offer a method for the recipient to opt-out (unsubscribe).
• Contain the sender’s valid physical postal address.

With a professional newsletter system these two requirements are automatically handled for you.  After all, if you are sending something out of your e-mail client (i.e. Outlook) the recipients do not have these options, so technically you are in violation of the act simply by e-mailing people in bulk who have not explicitly given you permission (even if they have chances are you only have a piece of paper or verbal record) who don’t have an easy way to unsubscribe.

You can get the full details on CAN-SPAM at the Federal Trade Commission site.

For simplicity sake, just know that this law applies to you and all your e-mail marketing as well. You are required to ensure you are in compliance and the easiest way to do it is to find a provider you like (I can recommend several) and spend the small fee to ensure piece of mind for you and your business.

Photo Credit: Flickr

So you’ve set up your email newsletter publishing system and you have launched your blog. Now you need to come up with regular, valuable content. It is at this point that I often hear the screams “What do I do? How will I ever figure out what to write about?” It is a worthwhile concern. After all, one of the things that make email and blogging effective marketing tools is the fact that it is regular and consistent. So if you’ve decided that a blog and email newsletter is right for you, you need to stick to a schedule.

Sticking to a writing schedule, for some, might seem like a neverending bad nightmare of last minute paper writing in college. However, it doesn’t have to be hard. In fact it can be fun. If you’re not having fun with it (at least most of the time) it is not the right marketing tool for you (but that is a different topic altogether).

So, here’s my top ways for beating writer’s block and keeping your blog posts and email newsletter content flowing.

1. Pick a reasonable schedule for you. Sure there are blogs out there that update content 24/7 multiple times each day. Unless that is how you want to live and run your business, I suggest picking something a little more in line with what you really want. The important thing is to make sure it is regular and consistent. At a minimum — at least weekly is recommended for blogs and every other week for email newsletters (although weekly is better there too).
2. Write about what you know and enjoy. If you’re in business for yourself I surely hope you enjoy what you are doing because you’ll spend a lot of time doing it! If you don’t enjoy it — well, that’s a question for my coaching business. Write about your expertise and write in a way that feels good to you. This isn’t English lit… relax a bit and let your personality come through. Stay professional of course but let your written voice align with what you stand for.
3. Content is everywhere. Running out of things to write about? Not possible. Read the rest of this entry »

With email marketing it can sometimes feel like you spend time crafting your articles, bless them, send them off,and then wonder if anyone is every opening or reading them.  How can you know?  If you’re using a professional email publishing system you have easy access to basic statistics about your broadcast.

Information you will want to know about each broadcast includes:

• # of emails sent
• # and % of undeliverable emails
• # and % of people who opened your email

Any system you use should also automatically manage any undeliverable emails.  For instance, attempting to deliver the message a certain number of times before it considers it a “bad” email address.

As with any statistics, they are a benchmark, not an absolute. For instance, I use Aweber and while they can tell me the open rate of my broadcast, they cannot track this figure for emails that are sent plain text (vs HTML).  So, I can usually assume my open rate is “at least” whatever percent it is showing in the report.  I always include a plain text version of my HTML newsletters for people who either choose to receive plain text only or for email programs that do not support HTML (or have the settings turned off). Read the rest of this entry »

When you’re updating a blog, website, or sending out an email newsletter, one of the great things you can do to personalize your message and make it look good is by adding images. It doesn’t have to be difficult or complex, but you do need to edit and save them appropriately if you want them to look good and work well on the web and in email. That means no more:

• Funny cropped picture
• Incorrect file types
• Incorrectly resized photos that look horribly unprofessional
• Massively large image files that grind your email to a halt

Working with images can be a career unto itself. Many fancy software programs exist for experts to do magical things. However, for the average person it is total overkill. For those quick do it yourself situations consider using a tool like Google Picasa. It is free and easy to use for your most basic image tasks. Read the rest of this entry »