Customer List and Spam Issues every Internet Marketer should know

Do you have questions about your customer list? Are you concerned about deliverability rates and accusations of email spamming? Read on to find out more about these common Internet business issues.

Question #1: If the List Opt program gives you the option to capture last name, should you keep this on file? You don't need a last name when you capture personal information because a first name makes messages more personal. You need a last name only when customers buy from you. You only have to keep info on file as long as you need to send something to them. It depends on your product. You do want to keep their information on file in an Autoresponder so you can keep in touch with them.

If you do want the last name, you can specify in the List Opt feature that you want to collect their First name, last name, email address, IP address, and the date stamp they signed up for the newsletter. This will prove that they signed up for your list and that you are NOT spamming them. Obtaining all this information will help you

Question #2: How do you know if you have been accused of emailing spamming? Your hosting company will get an email regarding your IP address with respect to spamming. Never buy names from lists! This is spamming!

Question #3: What do you do if you are accused of spamming? Unfortunately, the Spam Cop won't tell you who accused you. You can't find out what really happened or who accused you and why. You will have to prove you obtained their email legitimately with the first name, last name, IP address, email address, and time date stamp of when they opted into your list.

Question #4: You have a great deal of undeliverable mail each day. Are these emails being stopped by SPAM filters? Remember, List Opt will provide you with quantity, NOT quality email addresses. (70% junk, 30% good)However, List Opt is still worth it because it is cheap and you still have 30% good emails. So expect a lot of undeliverable emails from List Opt and World Wide List accounts.

Question #5: How can you avoid adding bad email addresses on your customer list? One option is to block emails from certain domains in List Opt and Word Wide List. For example, you can specify that hotmail addresses that try to sign up through your World Wide List program will automatically be rejected.

Plus, you can never control people who just want to view your content, but don't actually want to be on your list – they will put in fake emails. You could also manually clean up your list.

Question #6: Is there a tool to automate the editing of your email list? You have to go through your email list manually. Hire someone to do this if you don't have time. You should clean up your list once a month or once every six month.

Question #7: What is a good deliverability rate? Anywhere in the 90's for the deliverability rate is very good. Anyone that claims a 99% deliverability rate is full of baloney. This is impossible because people make up email addresses, use fake accounts, etc. Nobody can guarantee a 99% deliverability rates.