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21 Day Web Master Training

DRAFT

DAY 4 - THE POWER OF EMAIL: BUILDING YOUR LIST - CHECKING IT TWICE

Email plays a TREMENDOUS role on the Internet. Most think of it as a convenient (and free) way of sending a letter at cyber speed. Others might thinks of it as a powerful way to bulk distribute information to target markets. Some (ones who are making money) recognize email as a powerful array of services. This lesson will cover effective ways to setup and utilize this array.

Setting up Your First Email Box

In "Administrative Tools", select "Setup Email Accounts" then click on "Go". To add an email account: First enter an email account name such as yourname@eznettools.net.

(This provides an email address under the eznettools.net domain.)

If you’ve already registered your domain name and emailed tech support to complete the process, it should not be long for your domain name to become active. When your domain is active, it will appear in the lower list box on the mailbox setup page.

Click on the "Add" button. Then highlight the mailbox you just created, and click on "Get Info". This will display your email address, username, password and other server information. (Click OK to close.)

If you would like to change your password, click on "Set Password" and type in the new password (Click OK to complete.). Click on "Get Info" to verify your new password. To remove a mailbox, highlight mailbox and click on "Remove".

Once you’ve set up your mailbox, select the mailbox account and click on "How to retrieve email from this account", which will cause a window to pop up with detailed instructions on setting up your account for Outlook Express, Netscape Messenger, and EZ-OnlineMail™. Outlook Express and Netscape Messenger can be configured to download and manage your email in a number of ways. In this lesson I will be discussing EZ-Online Mail™ which provides 200 email boxes for website use.

Here are a few things you can do with EZ-Online Mail™ (Included with Website):

  1. Access email system using any computer with full browser and Internet access.
  2. Collect email from mail list.
  3. Send bulk email to mail list.
  4. Customize name and email field of outgoing mail.
  5. Create custom folders for email management.
  6. For each mailbox you can create custom signature text to be displayed at the bottom of each email.
  7. Use an email account (or more) to acquire a copy of a group of email accounts. For example, with EZ-Online Mail™, you could setup one email account to capture the incoming mail of all other accounts. This way you could check all your website email in one place; this could also be used to archive your email in real time.

The following gives a hypothetical list of email addresses as an example of how your EZ-Online Mail™ boxes could be set up to provide classification and management of email. To illustrate the naming convention of your email address box, I am using the website account name X304611 for my example.

Once you setup your mailbox, you can login to EZ-Online Mail™ through Administration Tools or by going to www.ezonlinemail.com. Use the letter designator at the end of the your account name to specify which mailbox you are accessing in this example x304611a would access mailbox #1, x304611b would access mailbox #2, and so one. Near the bottom of this list you can see how the x304611z is mailbox #26, and x304611aa is mailbox #27.

Mailbox Name (shown below) indicates mailbox naming convention. Email Address gives examples of mailbox usage. Following table assumes website username is X304611.

Mailbox    Name                  Email Address

      1        x304611a            webmaster@yourdomain.com

      2        x304611b            sales@yourdomain.com

      3        x304611c            info@yourdomain.com

      4        x304611d            information@yourdomain.com

      5          x304611e           service@yourdomain.com

      6          x304611f            marketing@yourdomain.com

      7          x304611g          admin@yourdomain.com

      8          x304611h           engineering@yourdomain.com

      9          x304611i            humanresource@yourdomain.com

    10          x304611j           president@yourdomain.com

    11          x304611k          owner@yourdomain.com

    12          x304611l          daniel@yourdomain.com

    13          x304611m          etc@yourdomain.com

    14          x304611n          newsgroup1@yourdomain.com

    15          x304611o          newsgroup2@yourdomain.com

    16          x304611p          newsgroup3@yourdomain.com

    17          x304611q          radioad1@yourdomain.com

    18          x304611r          radioad2@yourdomain.com

    19          x304611s          radioad3@yourdomain.com

    20          x304611t          wantads1@yourdomain.com

    21          x304611u          wantads2@yourdomain.com

    22          x304611v          wantads3@yourdomain.com

    23          x304611w          newsletter1@yourdomain.com

    24          x304611x          newsletter2@yourdomain.com

    25          x304611y          banner1@yourdomain.com

    26          x304611z          banner2@yourdomain.com

    27          x304611aa         newsgroup1@yourdomain.com

    28         x304611ab         newsgroup2@yourdomain.com

    29.        x304611ac         newsgroup3@yourdomain.com

    30. …

Recommendation

With such a large number of mailboxes, it would be impractical to check each one every day. Consider using the "Accounts" button to set up a mailbox that imports mail from all your mailboxes. Or maybe use the first 10 – 20 mailboxes to collect the mail from groups of mailboxes.

Setup at least 3 mailboxes, configure the first mailbox x304611a, to receive from the other 2 boxes. This is a great time saver when checking your mail. Especially if you happen to be using all 200 mailboxes.

Your Email List

When visitors enter their name into you mailing list, you mailing list grows. Usually people opt into a mailing list to receive additional information from your website. This is your opportunity to follow up with the information requested, and remind your visitors about your website.

Default Email Address

Bulk mail is sent from the default email address. The default email address can be specified in Edit Member Profile. (Day 1 Lesson)

Request Forms and Email

Unlike the opt-in mail list which receives names into the default email list, an Information Request Form can be sent to a specified address with a specified message, according to your programming. You could can setup a number of Information Request Forms, each addressing a different issue, each sending information to a different email account.

Each Information Request Form can send a unique description with the information entered by your website visitor, so you can identify the source and purpose any of email generated from your Information Request Forms.

Bulk Email and SPAM… What’s the difference?

Before using any bulk email facility, it is important to understand what is responsible email etiquette or "netiquette" (when referring to Internet etiquette) and what is SPAM?

SPAM is unsolicited email, or junk mail that appears in email boxes. If you have entered your email information on the Internet, you are probably receiving some bulk mail.

Here is the difference between SPAM and responsible bulk email:

Responsible Bulk Email provides a service to email recipients who request or otherwise authorizes email be sent to their email box. Authorization can be granted by entering an e-mail into an opt-in mail list like you did to receive the free lessons, or authorization can be given by filling out online forms where you can request and that future information on a category (such as "golf") be sent to you. It is generally understood that is appropriate to send the requested information, with reasonable future follow up on the request.

SPAM is unsolicited email. SPAMMING is the process of sending unsolicited mail. Some have bought into the belief that sending email by the shotgun method would result in increase sales. Usually this results in email clutter that can be annoying and counter productive, and puts an unnecessary load on ISP’s and Internet resources. Although there is are different opinions and definitions of SPAMMING, it is illegal and many ISP will terminate your account if you are caught sending SPAM.

Some ISP (Internet Service Provider) contracts have anti-spamming clauses that allow the ISP to fine a user for each SPAM message sent. Imagine if an ISP has a fine of $5 for each SPAM message (like my ISP does). You should hope your ISP shuts you down early, which is a likely remedy for clearing their clogged email system (with you being the cause of their service slowdown and congestion). If only 10,000 SPAM messages were sent (plus thousands of returns likely to hit your ISP), you can imagine the problem take could come out of this. Bottom line: Be responsible with you email list, and don’t spam.

What to do with hundreds of e-mail boxes to maximize advertising effectiveness.

There are a variety of creative ways to setup and manage 200 email addresses using this system. Using real (but mostly fictitious) email addresses, here are some ideas:

  1. Setup email boxes with functional names like webmaster@ezwebsz.com, sales@ezwebsz.com, information@ezwebsz.com and support@ezwebsz.com.
  2. For a more personal touch setup your mailboxes with persons names like tim@ezwebsz.com, sue@ezwebsz.com, jdoe@ezwebsz.com, johnd@ezwebsz.com.
  3. Setup email boxes according to department like shipping@ezwebsz.com manufacturing@ezwebsz.com , payroll@ezwebsz.com , president@ezwebsz.com
  4. Use separate mailboxes to track marketing campaigns. Let’s say you placed an ad in 10 different newsgroups. You could set up 10 different mailboxes, one for each newsgroup. (Or maybe one mailbox for all newsgroups, depending on what you want to accomplish) The number of responses can be used to measure the effectiveness of your postings in newsgroups.
  5. You could use the technique in Item #4 for other marketing campaigns (direct mail, newspaper, radio, TV, …)
  6. You could track your email by product or product grouping (widget@ezwebsz.com , bicycles@ezwebsz.com , toys@ezwebsz.com)
  7. Use ‘Accounts’ to setup an email box to collect mail from all other boxes, so you can check all your website mail in one place.
  8. Setup an email box to retain a copy of mail going to your other mailboxes for backup or archival purposes. (From time to time, you may want to "trim back" your backup to remove unnecessary or irrelevant email.)
  9. You could use the ‘Accounts’ feature in EZ-Online Mail to acquire a copy from a group of selected mailboxes into a single mailbox. For example, the contents of the 10 mailboxes in Item #4, could be automatically copied to a single e-mail box so you can check the mail from all the newsgroups mail by going to that one mailbox. You could respond by email from this single account. This mailbox account represents a level of prospect qualification.
  10. You could build customer lists pass your prospect to a different email box for a progressive qualification or level of rapport.
  11. How about tracking your marketing by season or holiday (santa@ezwebsz.com, easter@ezwebsz.com, springtime@ezwebsz.com, autumnspecials@ezwebsz.com.
  12. You could setup email boxes that route mail from other email boxes according to your specified priority. level3@ezwebsz.com, hot@ezwebsz.com.

There are other ways to use this email system to gain useful feedback and insight. You may need only a simple mailing list. Ask your visitors to sign up, then help your customers remember your business. To someone who has not yet finished their holiday shopping, imagine how meaningful a follow up email might be on Christmas Eve. Are you ready for the Holidays?

END OF LESSON

Tomorrow: E-COMMERCE - "YOUR CASH REGISTER TO THE WORLD"


THIS CONCLUDES THE FREE LESSONS

Thank you for your participation in EZWebSz FREE LESSONS. You can purchase the entire 21 Day Webmaster Training Course at http://www.ezwebsz.com/21daysel.html (select Stock# 501 and 502). By adding Stock# 503, you can extend your website access an additional month, plus receive a addition website access as a BONUS.

If you've already purchased the 21 DAY WEBMASTER TRAINING you will receive a user name and password to access all lessons, and a separate user name and password for access to an EZWebSz FULLY INTEGRATED E-COMMERCE WEBSITE.


Dear Friend,

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    1. Is the Internet the future?
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    3. Are you making a fortune on the Internet?

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QUOTE:

"… a transformation of society that is every bit as profound as the Industrial Revolution."

- Business Week


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