Email Part #1:
Three Things You May Be Doing To Sabotage Your Online Presence
A major function of a web site should be to encourage surfers
to make contact through email. Realistically, well over ninety-percent
of visitors will not make themselves known. So it is important
that the remaining ten-percent is handled promptly and professionally.
Be Prompt and Professional: Check your email regularly
and respond promptly to any inquiries. When you become too
busy to respond the time has come to hire somebody to do PR
work! In addition, there is no such thing as a "quick"
reply. Spend some time creating form letters - thank you,
introduction, and announcement letters. Avoid slang and double
check spelling.
Messages in Plain Text: It is important that your
message get across clearly. In the past, different desktop
computers could not communicate or pass data to one another
because of dissimilar formats. Fortunately, the internet has
helped a great deal in closing the gap between PC's, Mac's,
and other operating systems. Still, each has its own way of
formatting messages and can result in extra "garbage"
characters in a recipient's mailbox. For example, many web
browsers send email in HTML, delivering garbage to recipients
with different email readers. Before firing off anything,
make sure that your email software is configured to send "plain
text" only - not MIME, Rich Text, HTML, etc.
Unsolicited Attachments: All of the popular email
programs allow you to include files in a message. Some artists
have abused this function by mass mailing an attached audio
file and/or picture to A&R reps, fans, etc. This is an
action that can earn the title "spammer." Be sure
you have a recipient's permission before sending any attachments.
"Why", you ask? Attachments increase the size of
your message by a great deal and can lock out its recipients
from receiving any further email! This is because a size limit
may be placed by the receiving ISP. In fact, some companies
and ISPs ignore attachments, entirely! Furthermore, attachments
add unnecessary upload time to your message. If you want to
distribute a song, put it on the web and email its URL. A
carefully written email announcement will pique enough interest
and avoid angering your online audience.
That Bcc Thingie: Don't you hate it when an email
contains every single recipient in the "To:" list.
This is the message you get when it takes scrolling past five
screenfulls of email addresses before seeing one measly sentence,
announcing a concert that happened two nights ago. This does
nothing more than anger recipients, encourage spamming, compromise
the confidentiality of fan's email addresses, and show that
the sender is an amateur. Typically, someone in the "to:"
list decides to "reply all" and either complain,
unsubscribe, or send out an unrelated announcement in retaliation.
PLEASE STOP THIS MADNESS! Every email program comes with what
is commonly called a Blind Courtesy Copy or Blind Carbon Copy
(bcc:) feature. Blind copying (a.k.a. bcc'ing) allows mass
mailing without revealing the entire list to each recipient.
See your email program's help section for more information.
Bcc is not always in plain view. So you may have to dig around
a bit.
The The Complete
Guide to Internet Promotion for Musicians, Artists & Songwriters
covers in more detail how to draft emails and what pitfalls
to avoid. It also covers how to integrate email with your
web site effectively, increase your list, and generate repeat
traffic to your web site - without resorting to spamming!
Click here to get
your copy today!!!
Stay Tuned for Part 2!!!
About the Author: John Dawes is an
independent Internet consultant and founder of MusicPromotion.net,
a company specializing in affordable web hosting and design for artists. He is
most known for his informative articles on Internet music promotion and is co-author
of international bestseller The
Complete Guide to Internet Promotion for Musicians, Artists & Songwriters,
with music industry guru Tim Sweeney.
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