Or why we don’t like don’t like spam or AOL for that matter!
Earlier this year both of our companies, Truechoice Motorsports and PAP-Parts, sent out broadcast emails as our way to offer specials, discounts and other valuable information to our customers. We had been doing this off and on for seven years with no problems.
We always kept in mind people hate spam. We felt we were not sending spam as we understood it, since we were sending legitimate offers only to email addresses furnished to us by our own customers and saved in our own database. We even had clear email titles identifying the sender and the offer and we did have opt-out links for our customers to have us take them off of our email address list if they so wished.
What is that old-time saying about one rotten apple spoiling the entire barrel? Our entire email marketing program heard from the one rotten apple…an unidentified AOL user.
About a week after an email was sent out we received an email from our web store site hosting company stating that if we didn’t stop using their servers to email spam, they would have to shut us down totally and take us off their servers due to Ameritech, their IPO, asking them to cease and desist from allowing spam from PAP-Parts.
Upon receiving the notice about being labeled spammers we did what any party that thinks it is innocent would do…state we were wronged and then try to prove it to whoever lodged the complaint we were not spammers.
That is pretty hard to do in the undefined and elusive e-world. We started with our hosting company and explained that we had been sending marketing emails for years and had had no problem and even asked them to review the alleged spam. They seemed to agree but with the heat on from Verizon, they took the easy way out and suggested now would be a good time to go to a full email marketing specialist that could help us run a proper opt-in, spam-free, good-practices email program.
Our second tack was to contact Verizon. Us against the big guys! Well, sadly Verizon couldn’t tell us what we had done wrong, only that we had done it. They wouldn’t listen or allow us to show proof…to them we were spammers based only on the complaint of one single AOL user labeling us as such. The Verizon representative said the industry was riding very hard on spammers and they take the complaint of someone in the public as serious. Guilty…forget about proving it!
I bet you can guess where we headed to complain next?
That’s right…AOL. Let’s be short and to the point about AOL. Here is a company that markets itself as a leader in internet communications technology and guess how you contact them with a question about one of their customers labeling you a spammer? You write them a letter and mail it to them. I guess that is some kind of a low-tech way to hide from hi-tech complaints. Is AOL even a player in this new internet world anymore?
We were, left with a barrel of rotting apples. It was now time to check into complete broadcast email packages. The thinking for this seems to be if they can get the real non-spamming marketers into legit programs that can be tracked, edited and managed better they might be able to slowly eliminate spamming by the real internet bad apples. It makes sense, what hidden spammer is going to come out of the internet darkness and identify itself with a legit program?
Welcome to the new world of fully spam-free, opt-in-only marketing system through GoDaddy Express Marketing, one of the companies our store hosts recommended.
We sent out new Truechoice e-marketing opt-in forms at the end of June to have our old customer list sign up for the new controlled program. We waited for our customers to respond to the opt-in form, and after about a month's time we have discovered our email list has been pared down considerably.
It is going to take some time for the news to get out that the only way you will get an email from us from now on is if you opt-into the entire program as it is designed. You can only do that from your own computer by using the opt-in forms we sent out to the old mailing list customers or by going to the front page of our web stores and clicking on the Opt-in link that takes you to the form you will need to officially sign up. This is how GoDaddy and others control and prevent spamming.
To help kick-start our new Email Express Marketing program we made an initial offering good enough to truly thank those customers who took the time and opted in and one those who didn't opt in will wish they hadn't missed. Our first Truechoice email from the new program offered a full 10% off an entire order…no matter how big or what was bought. Maybe word will get around that there are real benefits in receiving Truechoice Motorsports marketing emails. Please help us spread that word. Tell other racers about the offer they missed and how not to miss other offers in the future.
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