EMail Thousands Per Month - Automatically -
Without Spamming

by Willie Crawford

The recent rash of spamming is a real irritant. Yet I
understand why some are tempted to do it. Of all the methods
of selling items over the internet, none is more effective
than emailing your message to a customer. All of the other
methods require the customer to look for, or stumble across
your offer. With email your message is right in front of
your potential customer and MANY will look it over. This has
generated a blatant disregard for many folks not wanting to
receive unsolicited emails.

Solutions I see discussed include stronger legislation, some
ISP's banning certain email domain names, and very strong
legal action against spammers. I also read regularly about
firms whose internet service providers DO close them down.
I hear regularly from internet marketers who go out of their
way to shut down spammers - launching massive campaigns.
Fortunately - I am not on the receiving end of their efforts
because I try to market responsibly.

Here are a few suggestions I wanted to offer my readers who
want to get their offers before more customers without
breaking any rules or creating any ill-will.

The first suggestion - that I use with considerable success -
is getting your own free classifieds ad site. There are
several firms that will set you up free with a site on their
servers. They make their money with links on the site leading
to their products, banners, etc. The script for the site I
use allows you to send a thank you note to anyone who posts
to your site. This note can be changed any time and I change
mine regularly. This "thank you" note should naturally
mentions a product or two that you feature. Or at least have
a signature file that lists your webpage URL. To see the page
I use, place your free classified ad and even sign up for your
own page, visit my site at:
http://rodweb.localweb.com/classads/sites/rich.htm I promote
my sites heavily and as a result send out several thousand
emails per month with my pitch.

A second suggestion, using the same strategy is to set up a
free for all links page that sends a thank you note/pitch.
Link-o-matic recently modified their script to do just this.
They are at http://www.linkomatic.com/ Before this recent
change, it costed anywhere from $25 to $300 for this same
service. The fact that folks paid up to $300 per year for
this service shows the value of getting your message in
front of customers who explicitly give you permission to
do so. (The script on my free for all page, and my
classifieds page indicates that I will send an email
thank you).

With this second suggestion, you do need an ISP that gives
you cgi access. The classified ads site (first suggestion)
is on the server of the firm which created the script. Most
of your providers of free web pages does not allow cgi
access. Two exceptions are Hypermart and Web Quarry. Their
addresses are http://www.hypermart.net/ and
http://www.webquarry.com/ I have had sites set up on both
these servers and can recommend them. Most paid hosts also
allow cgi access. There are lots of good paid hosts out
there. Just look around and find one that offers what you
are looking for. I use Virtualisys at
http://www.virtualisys.com/vr/wcrawfor I am also a reseller
for their program which pays me a steady monthly commission
from any customers that sign up through my sites. My
package with them includes unlimited auto-responders which
is also a big part of my marketing plan.

The third method I use to send email to prospects without
spamming is I join opt-in lists. These are list that you
join and agree to allow list members to send you their
offers. You are also allowed to buy the list, usually at 2
to 10 cents per name. Members of the list sign other up and
when their recruits buy the list they earn a commission.
They get good names to mail to and a chance to earn money
too. If you would like specific recommendations in this
category email me, as opt-in lists providers change
frequently, and I see new ones popping up daily as others go
out of business for various reasons.

I am aware of a problem that one such opt-in list had in the
past. Some over-zealous list members were signing others up
without permission. When these folks showed up as opt-in
members and began receiving lots of unsolicited email they
complained - LOUDLY. This cause one very responsible and
successful opt-in list to have to find another ISP and to
rewrite their program to prevent this problem from happening
again. Despite this potential problem, you get some very
good names to email your offers to - with their permission -
for only pennies each.

A fourth and final method I recommend is to join one of the
discussion list offered through services such as One List
or Listbot. Their addresses are: http://www.onelist.com/ and
http://www.listbot.com/At either of these sites you can join
or create your own list/discussion group. Many of these
groups invite you to email your offers to the list. Others
only invite discussion, but you can include you signature
file and still generate lots of traffic.

With all of these methods out there for ethically getting
your offers directly in front of prospects there is never
a good reason to spam. It gives the industry a tarnished
image and causes lots of folks to set up filters excluding
whole domain names. Lots of struggling small businesses are
consequenlty hurt, and don't survive to eventually become
your customers!

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* Copyright © 1999 Willie Crawford All Rights Reserved *