Some tribes in Internet marketing seem to think that the bigger their list, the more successful they are. As a result, they use all types of tactics to prevent you from unsubscribing to their emails. One such example I came across recently is by Keith Wellman, a “my-way-or-the-highway” type of business person.

For some reason, Keith Wellman decides to pressure you from opting out by masking his opt-out link with a warning message:

“Do not use this link unless you do NOT want product updates and upgrades”.

Yet, Keith has never emailed me about any update or upgrade, just more nonsense offers from his buddies. Putting obstacles in your subscriber’s path to opt-out paints a rather negative picture. Does it mean if I choose not to get Keith’s emails that I will not qualify for updates of a product that I have paid for?

That’s what the message seems to imply!

If you do not make it clear and easy for subscribers to opt-out, they can just click the “Spam” button on their Gmail account and they will never hear from you again anyway.

Email marketing is about building a list of relevant subscribers who still want to hear from you. It’s not about the size. 100 happy subscribers is always better than 10,000 pissed-off ones.

But the point is this: There is now an additional barrier between you and your potential subscribers.

Unless you’re willing to go the extra mile and overcome this barrier, you’ll be losing out on lots of potential subscribers. Every time someone subscribes to your Aweber autoresponder for example, they will most probably get a confirmation email. Unless they click on the confirmation link within that email, they will never be added to your list. That’s basically how double-optin works.

But with SpamArrest for example, your subscribers will never even receive the initial confirmation email. Instead, SpamArrest will determine that your email address is not yet “whitelisted”, and will send you a confirmation message which leads to a page like this:

You need to manually enter the verification code and click on “Verify” so that your subscriber will receive your email. Too much of a hassle?

That’s what I thought initially, but I’ve come to accept email protection as part of email marketing. Although SpamArrest may seem like an email marketer’s enemy, they do serve some beautifully valid purposes:

1. Your subscribers get less SPAM – Which means, they will likely be more responsive to your emails. Other email marketers don’t bother with this additional verification and thus never gain access to the subscriber’s inbox.
2. Forces valid email addresses – Both parties have to use valid email addresses that they check regularly. As the sender, if you use a non-existant or fake email address then you will never receive the SpamArrest verification emails
3. Promotes better email marketing – Your subscribers have a right to ask you to verify YOUR email address too. Services like this actually makes your email marketing better, more responsive and transparent

So is SpamArrest your friend or enemy? I prefer to think of it as my friend. What’s your opinion?

Research has shown that you need to follow-up at least seven times with an average prospect before a sale is made. Yeah, that’s right – SEVEN times!

That’s why you’ll find that most successful online companies (and some offline ones) always focus on getting your contact details first before making a full product pitch.

However, the problem with traditional follow up is that its difficult to keep up with individual prospects along the sales process.

Let me give you an example..

You’re following up with three people simultaneously, all three of them are in different stages of the buying process. Let’s call them John, Alex and Paul.

John is willing to buy right now. Alex is unsure and probably needs a little more information and convincing. Paul however has decided that he’s not interested, and would be happy if you would just leave him alone.

But you may end up spending too much time trying to win over Paul, that you completely neglect Alex and John, the two people who are most likely to buy from you. The fact is, traditional follow-up techniques are messy and unorganized.

Follow-up Emails Using Autoresponder Software

However, with automatic follow-up emails using email auto responder software, this vital sales process becomes so much easier. You can literally follow-up with thousands of prospects, at different stages of the sales process, on autopilot. You can set as many follow-up emails as you want, each answering a different question or selling your product from a different angle.

You can also predetermine the exact days between each follow-up email, as you can see from the example below taken from my Aweber account:

I this particular example, I collect names and email address by offering free blogging advice in the form of a PDF report. Here’s how my follow-up process looks like:

• Autoresponse (immediate) – In the very first email, I just give them the PDF download link. Sometimes I will introduce myself or my company, if required, but not much else.
• Follow-up 1 – In a friendly tone, I recommend what I think is the product they are probably most interested in, our blog web hosting package. This product is unique but generic, perfect for a first offer.
• Follow-up 2 – Two days after the first follow-up email (which is three days after they subscribe) I present them with another offer. This will be my best-selling product, and usually a low-priced item.
• All other follow-ups – You can see that the intervals between each email increase on the third, fourth and fifth follow-up email as I don’t want to overload the prospect with too many unread emails

I follow-up with different offers because the main product is a free download, so there’s nothing for them to buy. On the sales page for the individual products however, I also have an optin form. If the prospect fills in that form, I’ll only send follow-up messages related to the that particular product.

Final Word on Follow-Up Emails

Not everyone will receive all my follow-up emails. Some will unsubscribe after the first or second follow-up. That’s normal – it just means that they are not interested in hearing from you.

Others will receive all your follow up emails and still not buy anything in the end. These people are not interested in your current offer, but as long as they remain subscribed you can always present them with a different offer later.

When done correctly, email follow-ups can help you remove doubts, answer questions, and convert a prospect into a paying customer. With the correct autoresponder software (see the autoresponder comparison tables), following up with a prospect is not only easy, but fun too.

Don’t just assume that you can get some cheap shared hosting somewhere with “unlimited” bandwidth etc and put your script there, sending out thousands of emails every day. I did that once and woke up one day to find my account suspended.

Lets take a look at the 4 basic types of web hosting accounts out there:

1. Shared Hosting – You shared the same physical server / machine with thousands of other users. Although the hosting company may advertise “unlimited” bandwidth and space, there are tons of limitations in the fine print which makes that virtually impossible. Most importantly, with a shared hosting account you usually cannot send out more than 200 to 500 emails per day.
2. Reseller Hosting – A few resellers share the same server / machine, and each reseller can create new accounts either for personal use or to be sold. Although you may have additional flexibility with a reseller account, the very fast that you’re still sharing the same resources with other users means that there will probably be some type of limitations on using autoresponder scripts as well.
3. VPS (Virtual Private Server) – Similar to reseller hosting, a VPS provider has tons of servers and instead of giving you a big part of one server they give you small parts of many servers. That way it created some kind of “private network” for your web hosting accounts. With a VPS you have almost all the freedom you can get with web hosting, and you can host your autoresponder scripts with no problem. A VPS is the best choice.
4. Dedicated Server – If you have many websites, ten you may want to get a dedicated web server. With a dedicated server the entire machine is yours, and that means what you do does not effect anyone else. You’re free to host your autoresponder script, and the only reason a dedicated server is ranked lower than a VPS is because of the cost.

So, it’s clear that you should stay away from using a shared hosting account is you plan to install and use your own autoresponder script. A VPS is the best best, and LunarPages VPS is a great choice. A VPS can handle multiple accounts as well, and it much cheaper than a pure dedicate server. You get the flexibility you need, without breaking the bank

Here are two simple ways to back up your autoresponder data.

Backup for Autoresponder Scripts

Most autoresponder scripts will store your data into a database like MySQL, which is pretty much the standard database if your web hosting runs on Linux / Apache. Just login to your cPanel account, and click on Backup Wizard.  Then you can click on “Backup” – if you ever want to restore your backup then you click on the “Restore” link instead.

You can either backup your entire site, or just the MySQL database that contains your autoresponder data.

You’ll then see a list of all the MySQL databases in your account. Just click on the database that you want to backup and you can instantly download it in a zip file. Then just save it to your computer or external hard drive.

Sometimes your web hosting="http://gobala.linktrackr.com/hostgator-arp:keywords">hosting company may also provide automatic remote backup of your website. Most shared hosting="http://gobala.linktrackr.com/hostgator-arp:keywords">hosting accounts don;t have this feature, but if you do you’ll save all the hassle.

Backup for Desktop Autoresponders

A desktop autoresponder on the other hand will save your entire mailing list on your PC or laptop. In my opinion this is even more dangerous as your computer will probably crash more often than your web host. Your laptop may get damaged or stolen, so there’s an additional risk factor here.

When you use more than one computer, another danger is synchronization of data. You may overwrite a newer data file with an older one, which will wipe out months of hard work and leave you with a rather bad taste in your mouth.

I always backup all my data into an external hard drive, which I use to sync data between my laptop and desktop computers. I mainly use GoodSync, a commercial software you can get for about $29. GoodSync allows you to:

• Sync data between two disk drives
• One-way backup of data to a selected drive / location
• Backup / sync to FTP / online

It’s really good and I’ve been using it for two years now with no problems.

Then I triple backup everything to another external hard drive. That particular drive I store in my office and only take it out about once every three months to be updated.

I know, you’re probably reading this and thinking “Sounds like a lot of work..”

Yes, it is a lot of work. But it’s nothing compared to the amount of work you’ll be forced into when you lose your autoresponder data unexpectedly. So backup regularly, and you’ll never have to worry about your computer crashing every again.