Start Building Relationships With Email Marketing

People love seeing their own name. It makes them feel is if the email was written to them personally and not sent to thousands. Online services have simple options to directly insert names from your contact database using a template editor.

(Source: Selling Power, Seven Ways to Improve Your Email Response)

There’s much more into this than simply adding a first name. Think about all the data scrubbing you have to do to ensure your list(s) have the correct first name. Then, think about the content itself – does it actually make sense to use their first name? And, how do you use their first name? (ie, Hey FNAME or Hi FNAME or FNAME?).

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Stop Selling Crap

I mean it. Stop it.

I know it’s hard, since that’s the way you’ve been doing it all along. But things are changing – they have changed – and what you’re doing is wrong.

And if you don’t stop selling crap, someone is going to call you out on it, potentially ruining your brand and reputation.

Will you stop selling crap? I don’t know. I’m not sure what your tolerance for change is.

Can you stop selling crap? Yes.

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We Did It! (A Moving Update)

Earlier this week, I mentioned we were moving this site.

I’m happy to say the site has been moved.

I had a few hiccups that were both my doing (darn NS and htaccess) but the support from both Hover (domain) and Laughing Squid (hosting) have been excellent. Beyond excellent.

I thought it would be a good choice. It’s proven to be an excellent choice in just the first few days.

Now I can sit back and relax while watching tomorrow’s Carling Cup Final.

 
 

We’re Moving! (Domain And Hosting From Go Daddy)

Back in December, I asked the question:

Should You Transfer Your Domain From Go Daddy?

For me, the time wasn’t right. Yes, I disagreed with a bunch of their practices and public announcements (and still do). But the timing just wasn’t right.

Now, it is.

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Why Does eBay Need My Information? (A Phishing Scam Story)

I was involved with an eBay phishing incident yesterday. Someone had purchased something from eBay and I received the invoice / receipt, along with a notice that my PayPal account was charged. The email was very well done, so I called eBay to make sure they were aware of this.

This is where things turned a little weird for me.

Firstly, I don’t have an eBay account. I do have a PayPal account, so maybe they are tied together. I don’t know. I don’t use eBay.

I mentioned this to the eBay support person I connected with.

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