So you’re in charge of your organization’s mailing list, be it a company newsletter, messages about your website’s new articles, or something to keep your family posted on your activities. Here’s the first thing your readers might see:
From: bluewidgetsconews@gmail.com
To: 1@1.com, 2@2.com, 3@3.com, 4@4.com, …
Subject: …
Granted, you may have a riveting email subject and fascinating prose. What’s wrong with this picture, though?
Email Faux Pas
You’re putting your brand, Blue Widgets, right in the address, aren’t you? Isn’t that good enough? Everybody knows who you are from that, so it shouldn’t be a big deal if you use a free account, right? Not so, I’m afraid. Here’s why:
Spamishness
You’re using the same type of email account that spammers the world over love (I got over a dozen comment spams here from GMail alone today). Might as well grafitti your company logo on the nearest building while you’re at it, for as good a reputation each one will give you.
Note: This may not apply to informal ventures. I have a personal GMail account, as do many of my friends, and it’s just peachy to use it for friendly stuff. When you’re in business, though, you mean, well, business.
Missed Email Branding
Congratulations! You’ve just given Google free advertising. That’s what you do every time you send a letter from your GMail account. Sure, their informal motto may be Don’t Be Evil, but that doesn’t mean they gave you that free email address because they were feeling generous. It’s less than twenty bucks to get your own domain name, so do a bit of research and grab that virtual gem to use for your newsletter. I highly recommend Hostgator. Besides that, as a company, it’s even more imperitave to get a great Web address before somebody else takes your name.
Shut the Blinds
What else could be changed? Check out the email address list. Though Aunt Hilda probably won’t plan to send spam to cousin Fran and Grandpa Joe, you don’t know the same of the random guy who gets on your email list with less-than-honorable intentions. A simple cut-and-paste, and our ne’er-do-well has all your friends’ addresses in his hot little hard drive. We get enough junk email without opening up another door for it.
How to fix this? A simple feature called BCC, or Blind Carbon Copy. It’s in pretty much every email program, so it should be a cinch to hide everybody else’s addresses to keep them out of the hands of spammers. Just put yourself in the “To” field and everybody else in the “BCC”, and everybody will be happy.
Automate and Organize
As fun as it is to copy and paste all your mail list members’ addresses into your email program, wouldn’t you like an easier way? Too bad it’s too complicated and expensive to find a useful newsletter service… Never fear! Your Mailing List Provider is here! This handy-dandy Web-based program slices, it dices — well, it does a great job of managing your mailing lists, anyway. The basic version is also free, and will probably work quite well for your beginning efforts. It has a number of handy features such as an automatic user sign-up and unsubscribe via a Web form, webpage editor to add pictures and such to your mailings, email messages scheduled in advance, and more.
That’s it for now. May your email accounts be spam-free and your newsletter lists overflowing!
[See also: Newsletters from Podunk and What’s in a Name?]
