An Email Service Provider, that is! Not to be confused with who you get your Internet service from, an Internet Service Provider, or ISP. Make sure you have those two straight, since both come into play in this discussion. ESPs do the tech back end portions of your list hosting: they keep track of who … Read more
Let’s change things up a little and inaugurate the “Best Practices” category. One terrible mistake I often see from those who don’t quite “get” email lists is talking about “sending an email blast” to “prospects”. No one wants to be called a “prospect” — have a little respect for your customer or other audience group! … Read more
So far I’ve only talked about businesses having email lists, but let’s broaden that a bit. There are all sorts of other organizations which can benefit from getting the word out to their patrons. In an earlier post, I noted even the U.S. government’s Small Business Administration has an email list. It’s part of their … Read more
The first thing anyone needs to do before creating an email list is define what the list is for. The classic list most everyone starts with personally is “Jokes” — a list of friends who share your sense of humor that you think would enjoy the same jokes and cartoons you do, so you can … Read more
You might wonder why the heck you should care about this. Why do you even need your own mailing list? Maybe you have a big audience on Youtube or Facebook, and they tell your followers for you about new things you post. Isn’t that great?! Maybe. When you rely on a “platform” (like Facebook or Youtube) to … Read more
It’s not an obvious thing to all: what exactly is an email list, in this context? You may have a “list” or “distribution” in your email program so you can easily send a message to a group, such as co-workers, family members, friends, or even a group that you like to pass along jokes to. … Read more