OK, does the Internet really need another Blog? How on Earth will we start THIS discussion? For now, we're going to keep this blog 'topical' about the subject matter on our Blogtalk Radio Show, so that all of you can if you choose to debate and discuss some of the controversial 'stuff' we'll talking about. The first target: EMAIL. Here is a copy of an article that was sent to me from one of my favorite newsletters. The author is unknown and it certainly isn't the person who sent the newsletter, so my apologies for RIPPING this to shreds. My comments are in Blue Techniques 2010 – Common Email Marketing Mistakes. Part 1.  Make no mistakes! Email marketing is very profitable business, and like every business it has rules. Here are few topics to make your email marketing business more stable and profitable. Don’t make mistakes listed below, and you’ll see how your email marketing business grow! You do not have a permission-based mailing list. Unless you have the recipient’s permission, you may be sending spam, which is against the law. Too many business owners take shortcuts and buy e-mail lists or compile them in unethical manners, such as harvesting them from the Web. Spam also hurts the reputation of your business. The CAN-SPAM Act provides strict requirements about what you can and cannot do; for more information, go to the Federal Trade Commission Web site.
[ Sounds nice, doesn't it? Well its a bunch of B.S. Let me tell you why? First of all the source of the blog creates software that Harvests email addresses from the Internet and the tone of the letter above implies that this is something wrong to do. If you actually visit the FTC web site you'll see that there are clear guidelines for how to 'Ethically Spam' people for your business. As long as you follow these guidelines the bit about 'permission based list' is bogus. There is now an entire industry around opt-in e-mail campaigns that uses fear and intimidation to sell their products - the more e-mails you have the more it costs - well not at Earthgrid. You can IMPORT as many email addresses as you wish into your Earthgrid site and send out to your heart's content! The article also doesnt say that there really is no difference between an OPT-IN and a mailing list item. What matters is the CONTENT of the letter and how forthcoming you are with what you say in your letter: Now it is important that you follow these guidelines:
Google: FTC Spam Guidelines for Business
] Your content is poor or nonexistent. The more ads your e-mails contain, the faster people will hit delete them. E-mail marketers frequently send nothing of value to the reader. Just as people accept advertising and promotion in a magazine because they want to read the content, the same principle holds true in e-mail. You need to provide them with something that they desire. Interesting and topical content, albeit brief, should hold their attention long enough for you to market yourself successfully. [ Never sell anything in an e-mail. Only inform. Even better - keep your emails brief and put in a link to 'read more' ] Your emails are full of errors. The amount of errors found in e-mails is astonishing — words misspelled, poor grammar, links that do not work, and so on. These missteps, however slight, all signal a lack of professionalism. They can be easily avioded with some careful editing; don’t let these avoidable mistakes happen. [ Tone of email is conversational not literal. Try this: go to openoffice.org and download their office suite. Create a formal letter, add your letter head and turn it into a PDF. Upload the PDF to your web site and put a link to the PDF in your e-mail - NOW THAT's Class! ] You make readers jump through hoops. If you want someone to subscribe to an e-mail newsletter or sign up for updates about your product or service, do not make them fill out endless online forms, click through multiple pages, and provide unnecessary information. The more difficult you make it, the less likely they will be to subscribe. All you really need is their permission and their e-mail address. [ As stated above, the only purpose of opt-in is list segmentation. How you obtain the email address is irrelevant. Having said that, it is a good idea to ask for a Name and an Email Address, so you can personalize your letters. Create a chain of forms that progressively get more detailed information from your customers and TELL THEM WHY you need this information and what it will do for THEM. Say "I'm collecting your private information because I fully intend to sell this information to advertisers who will target advertisements to your preferences." ] Your “from” and “subject” lines are poorly chosen. Pay particular attention to the “from” and “subject” lines, because often people will determine that they do not know the e-mail sender and delete it immediately. Be clear: The “from” line should be the exact company or newsletter name with which they signed up. The subject line can be the name of the newsletter or a well-thought-out, brief headline that grabs their attention. [ Are you saying your From address should be your newsletter name? Research shows that unless you are a company, the best response comes from a personal name, not the name of the newsletter. All the marketing pro's send e-mail addressed from them and put the title of their newsletter in the Subject line. ] Conclusion: it goes to show that what you're told to do and what really 'works' are two different things. In reality, you have to test, test, test. As human beings we learn by failing and learning and then teaching others how we failed so that given the same set of circumstances they may not want to make the same errors. Same with E-mail marketing. Please put in your comments about this article by simply logging in with your earthgrid.com account. Or if you don't have one simply click Log In any way and create one. Or click on the menu item at the top. Our blog tool automatically will link your comment or posting back to your earthgrid.com web site so this way people can check YOU out. To Your Success, Viktor | 
Tight budgets and increasingly complex IT environments mean that IT operations teams must operate as efficiently as possible in order to keep the business running and end users satisfied. IDC research shows that standardized IT operations processes and workflows supported by automated, integrated tools consistently save time and money while improving service levels. To better understand how integrated, automated management tools can improve IT productivity, Kaseya recently posed the following questions to Mary Johnston Turner, research director for IDC's System Management Software service, on behalf of Kaseya's corporate IT customers.