Are You Abusing Your Mailing List?
April 7, 2008 | Author: Rob | Filed under: Business Advice
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Before reading on ask yourself candidly am I abusing my mailing list subscribers? Sadly I believe that many email list admins are abusing the good nature of there subscribers. I’m going to discuss my thoughts on it and what you can do as someone privileged to have a list in the first place to use it with respect.
To begin if you are lucky enough to have a long list of email addresses of people in your niche that have opted in and agreed to receive updates from you don’t abuse it. Sounds simple doesn’t it ? Sadly I see people abusing this all the time sending updates that shouldn’t be sent alerting us about things we really don’t care about.
1) Don’t send a message every time something new happens at your website.
Listen; you may be incredibly enthusiastic about your website / blog and that’s good you have to be but don’t expect me as a subscriber to care about all the updates you do. Chances are I use your service for my own benefit and that’s why you have my email. I don’t care about new features all I care about are benefits.
2) Don’t send updates as a form of promotion to generate traffic
I know you want more visitors and I know you know people who subscribed were once active. Just sending me useless emails will build resentment over usage. I don’t really care about junky email but many people are incredibly sensitive to this and will become annoyed with your company and stop using its services out of spite. If you are going to contact me; make sure it’s some new benefits to me that I can realize through your site.
3) Don’t sell your mailing list
If you are lucky enough to gather emails and email them don’t sell the list to someone else. I hate getting opt in email notes from people I never subscribed. If I found out that you sold the list or they became aware of me through you… Not good for “goodwill” if you know what I mean…
This is just tip of the iceberg and I have other things to do today so I’m not going on an arctic deep sea diving mission. Just if you have a list you know if you’re abusing it. STOP! Everyone expects to get a Holiday Email or the occasional update when something sensational happens. Abuse it and you’ll lose members on the list and maybe even get labeled a spammer in your community; it’s simply not worth it!
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2 people have left comments
Good points. Thank you for the reminder
I think everyone needs to be reminded sometimes. As the owner of one myself I am probably on the other extreme and don’t send enough…