Importance Of Spam And How To Avoid Being A Spammer
Spam is a terrible thing. We are all victims of spammers from time to time. Some unauthorized person gets hold of our email ids and we end up getting unsolicited mail. Lets look at how spam happens.
How Spam Happens ?
- It is normal practice to maintain a list of your existing customers’ email ids. Most business have to do this so that they can be in touch with them to keep them updated. But what happens at times is, they unethically rent out these lists to outside parties. These people send out unsolicited mail to the list. On the part of the business, they betray the trust of their contacts by disclosing their contact information without their permission.
- Spammers are experts at guessing and generating random email ids. It’s not very difficult to do so. Take email ids like hotmail and yahoo – many of these emails can be guessed easily. If domain names are known, those emails are also easy to guess. Once they come up with a list, they get going on spamming them.
- A sinister way of collecting email ids is web spiders that behave like search engines which save page information. But the spammer’s web spiders just save any email id they encounter. With all of us putting contact email ids on our web pages, can you imagine the number of email ids they will get hold of?
- At some point or other we have participated in chat rooms using screen names. Most people use a screen name that is the first part of their email id. When spammers hang around these chat rooms for a while, all they have to do is grab these screen names, add the ISP and there you are! An active list of email ids! As easy as it can get.
- Another irritating method that spammers use is to keep a list of email ids that they have come across. They take someone’s list and spam him or her, under the false illusion that if it is their friend’s lists, its okay to email them. It never occurs to them that unless the email id’s owner specifically permits them, they cannot send them any email.
Fighting Spam:
- Thankfully, most email clients now use filters that let you block email ids from which you don’t want to receive email. So every time you receive spam, you can simply block the sender.
- It’s a good idea to have multiple email ids for different purposes. This minimizes spam. Use one id for personal uses, another for signing up with online businesses and receiving mail from them and so on. Don’t use your personal email on the web. Especially for chat rooms, have an email you don’t use for anything else.
- Alter your screen name and protect your email id. More than anything, before you give out your email id, check whether the business has a strong antispam policy in place. If you’ve noticed almost everyone who asks for an email id makes it a point to mention that they will never rent, sell or give away your email id to third parties. They also specify exactly what they are using your email for.
The above points tell us, as online marketers, what not to do when it comes to spamming. Okay – you have seen the customer’s aspect regarding spam. Now lets make sure you don’t spam!
Don’t Be A Spammer!
Sometimes by oversight, online marketers tend to spam their lists. A few complaints and he checks himself. But what happens if your ISP brands you a spammer? They act first and then investigate. They present you with a hefty penalty and ruin your reputation.
How Can You Avoid Spamming Your Lists?
First, understand what spam is. Simply put, when someone does not ask to receive communication from you, you simply must not email him or her. If you go ahead and email them anyway, that means you are spamming them.
Make the effort to build your own opt in and double opt in lists. Even if it is time consuming, it is safer in the long run. Don’t buy them from a spammer, however cheap or tempting.
When you choose your partners for joint ventures, etc., make sure that you work only with those who have a firm stand on anti-spam.
Even if there is one spam complaint from one of your recipients, it can close your entire business and cost you heavily. Why waste all the hard work and effort you have put in by sending a message to someone who didn’t ask for it?
Take care to see that your email messages conform to the CAN-SPAM law. Constantly update your lists. You must maintain a record of all your subscribers. Keep strict track of those who unsubscribe from your list for whatever reason. Use your autoresponder to keep track of when the visitor signs in along with their IP address.
Avoid Opt-In List Providers:
Another segment to avoid is opt-in list providers. They sell you lists of relevant emails collected for you from others. You can’t be too sure about the genuineness of these lists, as there are different types of providers of varying quality. What you can do to minimize the risk is hire someone who will build an exclusive list for you, compulsorily having double opt-ins. The last thing you want is to be stuck with a list belonging to someone and be accused of spamming.
There are times when you cannot avoid using a subscriber service. What you definitely can do though is to make sure their practices are ethical.
These subscriber services put an ad for various opt in offers. The visitor has the choice of selecting the ones they would like to sign up for. After that, they directly sign up on your list. See the anti spam policy of these services.
Don’t even look at free for all sites. Nothing comes free in life.
Provide Quality Content
Make sure you write informative and good quality content when you message your contacts. There are certain words classified as spam filter triggers that can activate your customers’ spam filters and block you. You will never be able to reach them after that. So be aware of what these words are and compose your message accordingly.
Include an anti spam clause in your agreement if you happen to run an affiliate program.
Don’t say, “this is not spam” in your messages. Replace it with something like “this message is being sent to you because you because you, or someone using your contact information, subscribed.” Also add that your subscribers have the option of opting out of your list in every message that you sent.
Don’t ever use email addresses from online groups or communities without their permission. Forums as we know are very powerful and the kind of negative publicity you will get from them will ban you from half the sites across the world.
And finally do not plug your promotional material to newsgroups and mailing lists, unless they give you their express permission. You will recall all that you read in the ‘Forums’ section in Chapter 4 of this book. It is hard work to build your lists. Do it the legitimate way. Follow the rules and be successful!
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