Email publishing is easy to do …but there are a lot of steps to do right to make it work the way you want, to get the most from your marketing budget (in both money and time spent), and to ensure you’re not branded a spammer.
Randy Cassingham is Your Guide
Why Randy? He’s been an email publisher since 1994, and helped establish the “best practices” for the industry.
The Articles
Start from the top, or jump to a topic of interest:
- First Things First: What IS an Email List? - It's not an obvious thing to all: what exactly is an email list, in this context?
- Why Do I Need My Own List? - If your business relies on someone else's platform, it's not really "your business" at all — it's theirs.
- Defining Your List’s Audience - The first thing anyone needs to do before creating an email list is define what the list is for.
- Beyond Business: the Flexibility of Email Lists - There are all sorts of other organizations which can benefit from getting the word out to their patrons.
- Not Having a Blast - No one wants to be called a "prospect" — have a little respect for your customer or other audience group!
- Do You Have ESP? - An Email Service Provider, that is! Not to be confused with who you get your Internet service from, an Internet Service Provider, or ISP.
- When a Mailing Becomes Spam - There's a severe penalty for violating the subscribers' trust: spam complaints.
- Is an Email List the Right Solution? - What are the determining factors between just mailing a group from your desktop, and creating a formal, hosted list?
- “I Don’t Need a Mailing List: I Use Social Media” - Your business is your business, and unless your name is Mark Zuckerberg, your business is not Facebook.
- Your “From” Mail Address - Use your own domain-based address for ALL outgoing list-based messages. Here's why.
- Confirmation vs Thanks for Confirming - Two different messages with two critical functions that are easily confused.
- Listbuilding 101: Your Best Source of New Subscribers - These days list building is pretty tough: there is a lot of noise online demanding attention, and it’s hard to stand out.
- Setting Expectations: Your Welcome Message - Let’s go into a little more detail about what should be in it. And deliver on any promised incentives right here, right now.
- A Reader’s Landing Page, Dissected - It’s hard to get potential readers to give us access to their inbox. Make it clear what they’ll get, and answer most objections.
- Your “Avatar” - What’s your avatar? Knowing the answer — in detail — will help you focus your list messages.
- Spring Cleaning - These “subscribers” are harming your email efforts. Not just neutral, actual harm.
- What Do I Send Subscribers? - Setting expectations is important, but there's something else — downright, a TEST — that's critical when planning an email to your list.
- Open Rates and Click Tracking - But all this begs the question: How do they know how many subscribers opened the message, and clicked a link?
- Dealing with Rejection: Yes, People Will Unsubscribe - You celebrate every new subscribe, and then it will happen: someone will unsubscribe.
- Listbuilding: It Should Happen Offline, Too - Offline listbuilding can help attract new customers very cheaply. Here are some easy examples that work.
- An Automated Process to “Engage” New Readers - Here's a neat way to engage new readers in an automated way to help improve your mailer reputation score, and interaction with readers.
- Email Broadcasts vs Follow-on Sequences - The difference between an email “broadcast” and a “follow-on series” explained — and how to combine them into an extremely powerful marketing strategy.
- Single or Double: That is the Question - Single vs Double opt-in: which should you use for your list, and why? It's not as obvious as you might think.
- Don’t Say This! - Just about every web site with an email list says this on their subscribe form — and it’s a really stupid thing to say, which costs them subscribers.
- Adding People to Your List from Business Cards - “I’ve Been Manually Collecting Addresses: Can I Add Them to My List?” Yes and no: here’s when you can, and how.
- “Email is Dead!” - Doubters like to say "Email is Dead!" Here's why they're wrong, even for young people who "don't use email".
