Small Business Owners - 5 Things I Hate About Receiving Your Emails

As a small business owner we all struggle with cost effective ways to market our products and services. One of the most popular tools is email marketing. This form of marketing has become a favored method of reaching consumers among businesses.

Why?

Unlike in traditional marketing such as print, radio and TV advertisement, email marketing is much more economical method to use. Email marketing is literally a fraction of the cost of any traditional marketing vehicle.

Email marketing operates in real-time allowing your prospects to respond instantly. A highly effective and useful email will influence prospects to visit your brick and mortar location or visit your website to purchase your product or service immediately.

However when done incorrectly influencing your prospects perception of email usefulness can be a challenge.

Business owners must follow the email and privacy statutes in 36 states in addition to the federal law CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act).

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 establishes requirements for those who send commercial email. It spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask emailers to stop spamming them.

Small business owners listen up!

You want to know 5 things I HATE about receiving your emails?

1. Your emails look like spam

Emails with out contact information and not consistent with your brand (i.e. same color, fonts and logo) hurt your reputation. Most spammers will not include a valid physical address, email address, phone number, contact person or department.

2. You don't give me the opportunity to opt-out

Your emails compete with all the others in my crowded inbox. Your design, format and content must add value otherwise I no longer want to receive them. Remember growing your mailing list is important, but don't do it at the expense of quality.

3. You make your entire mailing list visible

Not only is this bad email etiquette, some Internet Service Provider's (ISP) consider you to be sending spam if you send too many emails in a short period of time. The ISP won't tell you they blocked your emails and placed your domain on the dreaded blacklist.

4. You send unnecessary attachments

This is frustrating! Navigating the email to read your information should be easy. You have just a couple of seconds to make your case, so don't waste them.

5. You send messages from multiple email accounts

Emails from unrecognized senders are deleted or may be blocked as spam or labeled as malicious. Use a consistent email address to insure your mailing list does not have trouble receiving your email marketing.

It is important as a business owner to create professional looking email marketing. You can easily and effectively create high-impact emails that are as professional as your business with email marketing software.

The bottom line, if you want to comply with the law, make more money, improve efficiency and effectively track your results simply get on board with email marketing software.

Copyright 2008 Rising Star Ideas, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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