Spam...
How Much Will it Cost Your Business?
According
to a recent study conducted by Ferris Research, a market and
technology research firm specializing in messaging and collaboration,
Spam will cost U.S. businesses over $10 billion in 2003.
Spam not
only clogs our servers and in-boxes, but it alsocosts us hours
and hours of lost time in productivity.
Although
the estimated cost of Spam focuses mainly on lost productivity,
this picture may be much broader than you realize.
Some of
the more popular email providers, such as AOL (America Online),
Yahoo! and Hotmail, are now utilizing filters to cut down on
Spam. These filters are dumping Spam and/or bulk mailings into
a separate location. Although this may cut down on Spam in your
in-box, these filters are also dumping some legitimate email
messages.
What's more,
some hosting services not only filter the email messages, but
they're also blocking entire hosting companies. For example,
the blocking host may have gotten some Spam complaints about
a few marketers that host with ABC hosting company. (Keep in
mind, ABC hosting company may host thousands of sites.) Rather
than block the offending marketers, the blocking host decides
to blacklist the entire ABC host.
How
Does This Affect Your Business
What this
means is if you try to contact someone and their hosting company
has blacklisted your host, your email will not go through...
it will bounce right back to you.
If you suspect
you may not be receiving all of your email, contact your host
and ask them if they're using Spam filters or have blocked entire
hosting companies.
If you're
publishing an ezine or sending out any form of opt-in mailings,
how many subscribers are actually receiving your mailings? Most-likely,
not nearly as many subscribers as you may think. How many lost
sales has this cost you?
How many
messages, such as information requests, customer support requests,
etc., have you not received due to filtering?
How many
messages have you replied to that your customers or potential
customers have never received due to filtering?
As customer
service says a lot about your business practices, how many customers
will you lose?
The list
goes on and on. But the point is this, Spam is costing you dearly.
If you are
looking for a way to ensure that you email messages are reaching
your target I recommend you check out Filter
Buster.
Protecting
Your Email Address
So how can
you defend yourself? Well, it depends on which side you're on,
how to protect yourself, and/or how to make sure your messages
are getting through.
In order
to protect yourself against Spam, you first need to understand
how your email address is obtained.
There are
many unethical businesses online that collect and sell email
addresses. They use robots that travel from link to link in
search of email addresses. Their customers are led to believe
that these email addresses belong to individuals who want to
receive mailings. However, much of the time, this isn't the
case.
Never purchase
a list of email addresses from anyone other than a reputable
company. The only company I can recommend is Post Master Direct.
To protect
your email address from these robots, instead of displaying
your address on your site, use a feedback form. Not just any
type of form, but a form that doesn't display your email address
within the hidden form fields. The only form I can recommend
is Master Feedback.
You can
pick up a free copy here:
http://willmaster.com/master/feedback/index.shtml
Anytime
you're filling out a form online and you're asked to provide
your email address, make sure you review the site's "Privacy
Policy" to ensure that your email address will not be sold
or shared with a third party.
Protecting
Your In-box
To protect
your in-box, you can use a Spam filtering software program.
Although there are several available online, the best one I've
found is Mail Washer. This program will enable you to view all
the email on your server without actually downloading it into
your email program. Once you've reviewed your messages, you
can create filters and bounce the Spam messages back to the
sender.
Although
you can pick up the program free, consider supporting the developer
and register the software for a small fee.
http://www.mailwasher.net
Avoiding
the Spam Filters
If you're
sending out a mailing to an opt-in list, there are a few steps
you can take to make sure your message won't trip the Spam filters:
If you'd
like to ensure your messages are getting through, consider opening
email accounts with the popular providers. You can send your
mailings to these accounts and monitor their reception. If your
mailings land in the dump, you can make some adjustments or
even contact the company.
If you would
like to test your outgoing email messages to ensure they won't
trigger a Spam filter, Ken Evoy offers a great service called
SpamCheck.
This free service will enable you to send a copy of your publication,
or any email message, to a specific address and it will return
a report of possible words that will trigger the Spam filters.
Click
here to use SpamCheck
Conclusion
- A Word of Warning
Never send
follow-up emails to anyone who has not directly
requested information from you. If you send emails to visitors
that have not directly opted into your list or requested that
you send them information on a certain subject, it is considered
spam.
If it is
proven that you are sending spam to anyone on the net, your
business will be shut down immediately! No
ifs, no buts, no maybes. End
of story!
If you develop
a policy of only sending follow-up emails to those people who
have directly requested information from you,
then you will have no problems. By directly I mean they have
personally subscribed to your list.
If you wish
to use a co-registration service to generate a subscriber list,
such as www.subscriptionrocket.com,
www.hiplists.com
or www.pushbuttonleads.com
this is fine. Your subscribers will be directly opting in to
your list, so no problems.
Under no
circumstance should you purchase any of the “hired”
lists that are being widely promoted on the net. The people
on these lists have not directly opted into
your list and as a result they have not directly
agreed to receive emails from you. If you use these services
it’s only a matter of time before you eventually get burnt.
I recently
became aware of an autoresponder company who was shut down because
one of their customers was accused of using spam email. They
had purchased a list of subscribers from a company that is widely
accepted as an authority and highly respected. The customer
thought that because the company he bought the list from was
very reputable there wouldn’t be a problem.
They
were dead wrong… big time!
I repeat,
do not buy any subscribers that have not directly
opted in to your very own opt-in list or autoresponder course.
It just isn’t worth the risk.
