Discuss the fun task of marketing a t-shirt shop. Where to advertise, local marketing tips, word of mouth, press releases, search engine marketing, keyword advertising, magazines, etc.
Hi, I have a new website and I am trying to draw more traffic to it. I want to find ways to either send mass emails to people at one time with the website listed as my signiture but I don't want to get people so upset they won't even look at the site or I don't want to get banned from sites like google and yahoo. What can you do in the way of marketing your site to random emails???
__________________ Need Tees Done? Say Vende's the one! www.sayvende.com
You should check out the anti-spam laws. Spamming is never good for business in my book as it lessens the credibility of your business plus people just plain hate spam.
__________________ Everything tastes better on a stick
any unsolicited mass email is spam.. meaning if they have not signed up to be on your email mailing list and you send them advertising email.. that is spam.. I used to have a email list for another business i had and i only sent to those that signed up to be on the mailing list..
also by law.. in any mass emailing.. you have to have..
1. your actualy phyical address.. your name or business name (has to be a legitimate business name as in one you have done the paper work and such to get a dba (doing business as) as..
2. You have to have a opt out option for them to opt out from getting any more emails from you..
if you do not do all of these things.. and a few more i cant remember all the rules.... you can be in violation of the anti spamming law.. and can be fined big time..
You can always have a sign up on your website for special deals or offers via email. This way you have the permission of the people that you are sending emails to. Come up with something in regards to referral, if someone refers a friend to the sight they get a free tshirt or a coupon with percentage off their next purchase. Maybe come up with a contest, the prize is a free tshirt. Then set up your google adwords with keywords "free tshirt contest", people love free stuff. The way they get entered is signing up for email notifications of updates and releases, you get double the bang there. You now have people signing up to send permissable emails to AND you are getting traffic to your website.
__________________ Mystic Never give up on YOUR DREAM!
My company uses a program to gather information about customers, track orders, and mantain a database. This also allows us to send out mass emails and faxes. You need to first have permission from the customer in order to send them an email. If they elect to NOT recieve information from you then you cannot send them anything. There are several ways in order to format your mass emails in order to avoid spamming laws. One big thing that you want to remember is to break up the word free. Alot of times spam filters will catch this and automatically delete your intended email.
If, as a business, you're not replying to my e-mail, following up something order related (e.g. "sorry, we're out of stock" or "you forgot your street number") or sending mail to a mailing list I specifically signed up for... it's spam.
Common spam I receive from companies who think it's okay:
*Signing me up for their newsletter just because I made a purchase (B&N is particularly bad at this - I clicked every opt-out box known to man and they still spam me every few days)
*Signing me up for their newsletter because I entered a competition ("sign up for our newsletter to enter our competition" = fine however)
*Sending an advertisement in the guise of a "did you receive your order?" mail
Not much I can do about those... except vow not to shop with them in future.
One exception: coupon codes or discount vouchers that don't suck. For example: B&N frequently send me crappy discount coupons on one or two crappy books I'd never buy. Total spam. Chaos have sent me a couple "you haven't made a purchase in a while... here's a $5 gift certificate" e-mails - totally fine.
If, as a business, you're not replying to my e-mail, following up something order related (e.g. "sorry, we're out of stock" or "you forgot your street number") or sending mail to a mailing list I specifically signed up for... it's spam.
Common spam I receive from companies who think it's okay:
*Signing me up for their newsletter just because I made a purchase (B&N is particularly bad at this - I clicked every opt-out box known to man and they still spam me every few days)
*Signing me up for their newsletter because I entered a competition ("sign up for our newsletter to enter our competition" = fine however)
*Sending an advertisement in the guise of a "did you receive your order?" mail
Not much I can do about those... except vow not to shop with them in future.
One exception: coupon codes or discount vouchers that don't suck. For example: B&N frequently send me crappy discount coupons on one or two crappy books I'd never buy. Total spam. Chaos have sent me a couple "you haven't made a purchase in a while... here's a $5 gift certificate" e-mails - totally fine.
The reason that you are still recieving emails although you constantly are opting out of the newsletter is because these companies are sharing their database with other companies. A sort of friendly competition. This is how they get around the spamming laws. You are getting those gift certificate as a marketing campaige. It is a way to increase your customer value. A reactivation of prior customers. Everyone should be doing this in order to make more money. It is simple yet effective. If someone hasn't ordered from you in say sixty days, send them a "special" discount. Buy one, get one free.
The reason that you are still recieving emails although you constantly are opting out of the newsletter is because these companies are sharing their database with other companies.
No, they're all for the company I dealt with originally, not third parties. If it was third parties spamming me because of them I'd be even more irate. They spam me because they can, and they know as well as I do that the anti-spamming laws are a farce.
I don't get any spam from database sharing of that kind. It's all either the usual prevalent and random Canadian RX, home loans, online degrees, etc., or companies I've given my e-mail address to for one reason or another. I don't get spam from e.g. Target because they got my address from Amazon.
In other words legitimate companies never spam me unless I gave them my address. That still doesn't give them the right to spam me, but in their defense they've never bought my address from someone else and then used it to spam me.
Likewise the only company who might have sold my address to a third party is eBay (and I'm not saying they did, it's probably just their lax security that allows spammers to get it from their database, but they're the only one who even might have).
Quote:
Originally Posted by myronallis
You are getting those gift certificate as a marketing campaige.
No, really? Point is not many people will get annoyed at free money, even me (I'm quite rabid about spam). The gift certificate doesn't annoy me because there are no strings attached - no minimum purchase, no "only on these items", etc. - just spend it or don't.
If it came attached to a big list of things I could spend it on, that would also likely annoy me. But this particular example just send the certificate with no fanfare, and relies on the fact that 1) I've purchased from them before, 2) They're giving me free money.
When is emailing spamming? 
Everything tastes better on a stick 
Re: When is emailing spamming? 
Point is not many people will get annoyed at free money, even me (I'm quite rabid about spam). The gift certificate doesn't annoy me because there are no strings attached - no minimum purchase, no "only on these items", etc. - just spend it or don't.
