Your Email Could Win $50

I’m giving away a $50 gift card, details are below, but first this….

I get calls from people who need a list because they want to conduct email campaigns to businesses or individuals.  Here is what I tell them and anyone thinking of emailing people cold. Before I tell you, let me remind you what I mean by “cold.” Cold means contacting people who do not know or are familiar with you or your name (business or personal) for the first time without any warning. You’ve experienced this when you’ve received that phone call or email from someone you don’t know trying to sell you something you don’t want and had never heard of before they interrupted you.

The great thing about emails is that you can just delete and not hurt anyone’s feelings by hanging up on them.

Now here is what I say to them and you:  Let me ask, how many emails do you get in a day? How many do you look at (at least the subject line) before deleting?  Now how many do you open, read?  And how many do you reply to? Not a lot compared to how many you delete!

Now think about your cold email coming into someone’s inbox. What do you think would happen to your email? Yep, it will most likely get deleted without even being opened and read! By the way, most email providers will not sell you a list. They will send out the emails on your behalf, and any responses you get are yours.  What they do is direct the reader to a landing page that you set up where you can collect their name and email address. Another reason they send out the email is so they can make sure that it complies with the Can-Spam Act and have the appropriate opt-out mechanisms so you don’t get fined.

Yes, some companies will sell the email address, but if you don’t have the proper tools and knowledge you can get into trouble quickly. By the way, you can’t use Outlook, or your Google or Yahoo account to send out mass emails. They will shut down your account quicker that you can blink.

Your email inbox has fast become what your physical mailbox for your home and business was a number of years ago – full of junk mail that no one wants to look at so they all delete it without looking at it unless they know the email sender, are waiting for the email, it interests them, or it somehow stands out from the junk.

There are ways around not getting your email deleted but opened, read and responded to, but it will take some work on your part.

Right now, though, I’d like to hear from anyone who has an imaginative way to get an email noticed, opened, read and responded to. In fact I will give a $50 gift card to the person who best does this as a cold contact. (It’s being sent to someone who has never heard of you.) Send your email sample to Pfreedcom@gmail.com  Do not send it to any other email address. Only emails sent to Pfreedcom@gmail.com  will count. You have until 5 pm on Tuesday April 18 to get your entry submitted in order to win. Please include your name and address in your email. One entry per person. All emails become the property of Marketing Cure LLC and can be used in its marketing material.