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How do you send emails to hundreds of thousands legally?

email-marketing-aweberEmail marketing is one of the most abused methods of advertising ever. So is there a way to legally and ethically send your message to masses using email marketing strategies?

Before I answer this question it is good to explore why you want to market via email and why you don’t.

Online you face a problem as a marketer. That problem is very simple to describe. There are millions and millions of websites on any given subject. Because of this it is very easy for a prospect to visit your site and never ever find their way back to you again.

Even if a customer remembers your site and really likes it, there is a very real possibility that without email marketing they could never find there way back to your site.

Capturing their contact information and keeping in touch with them is critical to sharing what you have too offer with them and building a genuine relationship with them. This basic process is the core of email marketing.

Email Marketing is the answer to this problem, but there is a right way and wrong way to do it.

Because your visitors are VERY likely to forget completely about your site email marketing has been and continues to be a great way to create and retain visitor loyalty. (That assumes you have something good to offer your subscribers to begin with.)

So what is the wrong way to build your email marketing mailing list?

The wrong way to build a list is to buy it or send unsolicited requests to join your mailing list or visit your website.

I have seen advertisements like “send email to millions for $99″. WRONG, this is not how a reputable marketer operates.

This is socially unacceptable online and it makes you appear to really not care about the recipient of your uninvited solicitation.

Besides it doesn’t work, because the people who do join you because of this are lacking a key ingredient. They are not searching for what you’re selling…

They just happened to be agreeable to your request at the same moment they saw it… usually building a list this way doesn’t last, and is generally very costly.

So what is the right way to build your email marketing mailing list?

These are 2 examples of respected and socially acceptable ways to build your email marketing list.

Method 1)

The right way is to create content that will help your visitors in some way. Offer a fair trade in exchange for a visitors contact information. Then drive traffic to that offer.

Usually a free report with good information in it goes a long way toward creating a good relationship with your visitors.

You offer something valuable. Your visitor pays with something that is equally valuable. Their contact information. Its a fair trade.

Method 2)

Just like in method 1. Offer something valuable, in exchange for contact information.

This time find and build a relationship with someone who has a list already (hopefully a HUGE one). Once you have established yourself with the list owner identify how his or her clients can benefit from what you’re offering. If the list owner agrees that what you’re offering will work with their subscribers, pay for a advertisement in their regular mailer.

In this way you have the added reputation of the list owner to give your offer credibility. This is a great way to quickly build a list, but you must take the time to perform the due diligence to get it right or you will just waste your money.

Regardless of using method 1 or 2:

Be sure to respect this relationship you are building with your visitors. Keep their contact information safe and make it easy for them to opt-out if they don’t like what you have to say.

So who are the auto-responders/mailing list managers that are most popular?

There are a few free plugins for WordPress if you need to keep your expenses low. Just search for wordpress auto-responders at google.

I found they didn’t have the feature I wanted but you could be different.

www.aweber.com has been around for a long time and I use them (the link is an affiliate link, so please use it to check them out).

I can’t speak for the quality of these but others that seem to have a good reputation include:

www.icontact.com

www.getresponse.com

www.trafficwave.com

www.streamsend.com

www.infusionsoft.com – I believe is a new player to the game that is getting rave reviews everywhere. They provide a lot more than email list management from my understanding.

One of the most powerful tools you can use to build your business is email marketing. Have you done any list building? How did you do it?

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