Service Marketers; How’s Your Packaging?

Service Marketers; How’s Your Packaging?

by: Jay Lipe

When a shopper picks up a product in a store, what’s the first thing they notice? The packaging, right? The same holds true for someone buying a service.
Yet instead of a folded carton with colorful graphics, you are the packaging for your service business. Intangible points of contact, including your clothes, your briefcase, maybe even your breath, all burn a lasting image in your buyer’s mind.
Here are some of the more common packaging elements all service marketers should pay attention to:
Your clothes
All your technical expertise won’t mean diddly if you wear a tie dye tshirt and striped bell bottoms to your first client meeting. ขAlways dress better than you need to,ข says Sue Morem, author of How to Gain the Professional Edge; Achieve the Personal and Professional Image You Want. ขEven when dealing with a casual company, remember you are not a part of that company; you’re an outsider.ข If you’re not sure what to wear, find a personal shopping consultant.
Briefcase
I’ve seen people use briefcases that looked like they carried the first batch of Pony Express mail. Resist the temptation to use that briefcase Uncle Joe bought you at WalMart and instead invest good money in one at a reputable luggage store.
Briefcases are one of the few personal effects almost every business person carries into a meeting and this simple item speaks volumes about your image.
Your notebook
When you pull out some paper to take notes, do you pull out a sturdy, professional looking notebook or just a pad of paper? This item, which sits on the table throughout the meeting, may go unnoticed by many of your buyers. But then again, it may not.
Etiquette
Saying please and thank you. A firm handshake. Looking someone in the eye when talking to them. ขEtiquette is the equivalent of the ribbon and bow on a package,ข says Morem. ขGood etiquette lets others know you are in control and finishes off your image.ข For a good primer on professional etiquette, consult her book.
Proposal covers
Up until five years ago, I routinely faxed my proposals to prospects. Then, one of these prospects said to me ขJay, I have two proposals here. One is handsomely bound and the other is faxed. Which do you think I should go with?ข Point taken. When final packaging your proposals, estimates or RFP’s, use the highest quality binding system you can afford.
Envelopes
Do you still handaddress your envelopes? A lot of business people I know do and I sure wouldn’t penalize them for it. But if your competitors are ink jetting their envelopes, your image will suffer ever so slightly.
Email address
What image does your email convey? If your email address is [email protected] or [email protected], you might take a step back and ask yourself, what image does this convey? If you’re after a professional image for your service business, and you have an email address that doesn’t synch up with this image, you might want to consider upgrading it.
Domain name
These days, with the costs of taking your business online dropping precipitously, your business really should have its own domain name. I’m not knocking AOL or Yahoo. But if you want to project the image of an established business that operates in a professional manner, having your own domain name is a giant leap. For more information about availability of certain domain names, visit InterNIC at www.internic.com.
Email fonts and colors
I’ve received some very professional looking emails. I’ve also received some emails that were laughably amateur. Increasingly these days, buyers and sellers make initial contact through email, and casual fonts or background colors that bury the body text penalize you right from the start. Consider your email address and template as ขwrappersข for your business and treat them accordingly.
Voicemail greeting
Talk about a moment of truth for your business. The vast majority of business calls (including calls from your prospects) reach voicemail, thus underscoring the need for a professional, wellcrafted greeting. Don’t have your daughter recite her new poem or feature a rap version of ขOld Lang Syneข. Keep it simple…and professional.
Punctuality
At the root of being on time is respect; respect for someone else’s time. So, be on time for all appointments. If you do run late, call and let someone know. If you’re running a meeting, end on time or announce that the meeting may go longer and give anyone an opportunity to bow out.
If you think any of these packaging elements aren’t worth investing in, then you’ve missed my point. Each one of these is a defining contact point between your service business and your market, and forms an important element of your packaging. Pay attention to your packaging; your buyer will.

About The Author

Jay Lipe, CEO of EmergeMarketing.com and the author of The Marketing Toolkit for Growing Businesses (Chammerson Press), is a small business marketing expert who helps companies grow faster. He can be reached at [email protected] or (612) 8244833.

[email protected]

This article was posted on July 31, 2004

by Jay Lipe

Email Management

Email Management

by: Sharon Housley

If you utilize a computer at home or work it is likely that you use email. Email is an electronic message that is sent from one computer to another following a specific protocol (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol or SMTP). As emailกs popularity has grown so too have the inherent problems with email.
In order to send email you must have the exact spelling of the email address. If there are any typographical errors in the recipientกs email address then an unintended recipient could receive the email message. When creating an email address avoid characters that cause confusion, like the number 1 (one) and the letter l (el), computer fonts often cause those two characters to have similar appearances. Try to create an email address that cannot easily be misspelled.
As email has become a popular communication medium the email address should not be too long or complicated, but easily said in a phone message. Choose an email address that is easy for others to remember, as a pen is not always handy.
Unfortunately spam, unsolicited email has become common place, though many countries are taking action to make spamming illegal, these measures will unlikely have any short term effect on your email inbox. Many email clients that are used to read and respond to email messages, include basic filtering options that will sort your email messages into folders, based on rules that you define. Email messages can typically be stored and filtered by sender, subject and contents. There are also a number of 3rd party tools available for limiting the amount of spam received. Spam filters typically use different filtering technologies. When evaluating whether a spam solution fits your needs consider sorting filtered email into a specific mailbox for review prior to deletion. This will prevent any important messages from being unintentionally deleted.
As with almost anything, the best defense is a good offense. It is best not to post your email address in public forums, where spammers can harvest it. If you have a website consider typing out the email address: กname at domain.comก, without using the ก@ก symbol, as this will prevent the address from being abused by email harvesting bots. Another alternative is to provide a contact form rather than an email address.
Resources: Email Clients http://www.messagingsoftware.net/emailclientsoftware.htm
Spam Filters http://www.emailsoftware.org/spamfiltersoftware.htm

About The Author

Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com, and http://www.smallbusinesssoftware.net

This article was posted on May 26, 2004

by Sharon Housley

How To Drive More Hits To Your Website And Increas

How To Drive More Hits To Your Website And Increase Subscription

by: Dave Tan

What is SPAM? Why so many people hate it and yet so many people do it? SPAM is actually known as Unsolicited Commercial Email, itกs just like the junk postal mails you receive everyday in your mailbox. The only difference is that sending junk mails online costs almost nothing and it can reach the recipients within minutes just by clicking a button.

Sending email to the wrong people who did not request information from you is only a waste of time and asking for trouble. You can be sure that they are definitely not interested in what you have to offer, some will even get downright offensive and retaliate you with flame emails (with lots of swearing and cursing!) or worse still complain to your ISP (Internet Service Provider).

Do you ever buy a product from an annoying SPAM that kept popping up in your inbox promoting stuff that you don’t care about? Do you even bother to open and read an email that you didn’t request?

Thereกs a lot of 1 million emails floating around the net and you might be thinking perhaps you can find make a quick buck or two or gain maybe 500,000 subscribers there by sending your email to them?

Don’t do it! These email addresses are actually harvested through some email harvester software (Not targeted) and thus you do not really have any permission to send them any information some of the email addresses are actually SPAM trap!

So does that mean if you send commercial email, you’re automatically a SPAMMER too?

Yes and no. Yes, if you just send to any email addresses you can find under the net without having their permission to do so. No, if your manage your own subscriber list and responsibly send them information that they have requested and are interested in.

To maintain your own subscriber list, you must make sure that itกs a double optin process:

First, they must input their email address from your website or send an email for such purpose.

You will then send them a onetime email (manually or automatically) to confirm that it is indeed he / she that input the email address above (and not someone who has nothing to do but to provide false email address).

That person will have to confirm his / her subscription by clicking on the confirm link in your confirmation email or reply it with subscribe or something like that.

Finally, that person is in your double optin subscriber list.

Itกs perfectly ethical to send email messages to your own list but don’t over do it too. If you send them an email everyday they will get pissed off and leave your list. Try to be reasonable, email them twice a week is okay but be sure to email them with useful information.

Make sure you include an easy way for them to unsubscribe too. Just place an unsubscribe script link or just show them how to unsubscribe at the bottom of your email messages.

By the way, do not send any attachment files in your email, itกs very suspicious as most attachment files are usually trojan virus and you might flood the recipientกs mail box to its capacity. Get their permission first if you want to send them any attachments. So how do you drive more traffic to your website and increase your subscription rate? Just build your website and wait for them to come? Hah, if it was that easy!

Seriously…First include a nice, unique free gift not preferably not available elsewhere and say กitกs yours for FREE if you subscribe now!ก or something like that or a trial version of your digital product if they subscribe now. Then join the following AutoSurfForHits program to get FREE hits to your website:

Auto Hit Exchange http://www.autohitexchange.com/index.php?ref=385

No More Clicking http://www.nomoreclicking.com/index.php?ref=14449

The hits from these programs are actually random but if you offer a good free gift for subscribing, you can get quite a lot of subscribers. Note: You won’t actually sell anything from getting hits this way and even if you did, you’re either lucky, famous or have a super fantastic product. 🙂

But by capturing the visitors email address, you can have their attention longer where you can actually follow up on them and educate them about your product and so on. This is why everyone is crazy about building their own list, their own targeted market a potential goldmine.

Thatกs all for this article, good luck at getting more subscribers!

Best Regards,

Dave Tan

www.eBookOK.com

Permission to reprint this article if:

Article must remain intact in its original form and free of charge.

All links must be made into hypertext links and activated.

The author byline or resource box must remain intact and be displayed.

The articles CANNOT be used in SPAM of any forms. You can only use the articles for your optin subscribers.

A courtesy copy of the URL, ezine, newsletter or eBook where or how you have used the articles would be great.

About The Author

Get fresh, weekly, uptodate Internet Marketing Power Tips and Exclusive eBooks that will give you an unfair edge over your competitors here: http://www.ebookok.com/

This article was posted on April 28, 2004

by Dave Tan

HOW to use Guerilla Warfare on Spammers

HOW to use Guerilla Warfare on Spammers

by: Jason Tarasi

Do you ever wish you could travel back in time and smack yourself for doing something dumb?

If I had a time machine, I would travel into the past and warn myself about SPAM (Right after I played the winning numbers for todayกs lottery).

Come step into my time machine, and take a journey with me into the past. Let me show you how I conquered spam, and how you can follow in my footsteps.

When I was younger, my best friend had a basement stocked full of spam. His family couldn’t seem to get enough of it.

The moment I walked into his house, the aroma of spam filled the air.

When I was the ripe old age of twelve, I made the mistake of my life…I tried a spam sandwich. My friend convinced me that it was ‘really good, dude.ก

In my defense, I was starving and there was nothing else to eat. That thirty second experience still continues to haunt me.

This wouldn’t be my first nightmarish encounter with spam, however.

Ten years later, while building my very first Website, I naively put my email address on every single page of my site.

I wanted to give my visitors a chance to ask me questions, make comments on my site, etc.

As my Website grew more and more popular, I started to receive 100 spam emails a day. Then 500, 1000, 2000…until it became unbearable.

I needed a solution and fast.

The first thing I had to accept was that my old email address was now useless. So I had to give it a proper burial and let it go. Then I created a new email address and applied spam prevention techniques I had diligently researched.

The result? A spam free email account.

Let me tell you, it is total bliss my friend.

You are in a war. You vs. the enemy (Spammers). The war has swung to the other side, but by using guerilla warfare tactics, you can turn the tide of battle.

To win the ever growing battle against spammers, you have to study your enemy, then prepare your battle plan.

This may be the most important sentence you ever read about spam prevention, so pay attention Spammers cannot fill your inbox with their junk if they can’t find your email.

It really is that simple.

With that in mind, below you will find your battle plan:

Step 1: Say goodbye to your old email account

If your inbox is filled with spam, dump it. I know using a new email address can be painful, but in the end you will be happy you took this advice.

Once the spammers find your email, you will never be able to regain full control of your inbox.

Step 2: Create a กdummyก account at Hotmail or Yahoo!

Whenever you post on a message board, signup for an offer, or are asked to give out your email, use this dummy account.

Never use your main email address in such a manner, especially on a message board.

Many people try to กdisguiseก their emails while posting on a message board, under the false assumption a spam bot won’t grab this email.

As an example:

john @ myemailaccount.com

johnATmyemailaccountDotcom

The enemy has now programmed their spamming software to recognize these disguised emails.

Step 3: Use a contact form on your Website

This is a critical step. So listen closely.

Many savvy Webmasters use contact forms to prevent spam. However, it has to be done correctly to be effective.

If you have your email address ANYWHERE within your HTML, the new spamming software will find it.

You can’t use HTML encryption to hide your address, like you could in the past. The enemy has created new software that breaks down this code and grabs your email.

Many contact forms require you to use your email address to send the form information. BIG MISTAKE.

The spam bots will grab any email address in your HTML, even if it is in your contact form.

Your CGI script should contain the response email address it should not be in the HTML.

When you are creating your contact form, use the กMailToFormก script found here:

http://scripts.cgi101.com/

Step 4: Make a graphic of your email address

If you must have your actual email on your site, create a small image of your email address.

Then link this graphic to your contact form.

Now your customers can write down your actual email address and contact you at a later date.

The war rages on against spam, but by using these guerilla warfare tactics against spammers, you will soon achieve your FREEDOM!

Copyright 2005 Jason Tarasi

About The Author

Jason Tarasi publishes the reciprocal links newsletter กElite Linksก

Learn HOW thousands of other Elite Links members generate FREE traffic and increase their search engine rankings by swapping links. Grab your free lifetime subscription now at: http://www.freeclassifiedlinks.com/enter

This article was posted on February 17

by Jason Tarasi

Eight Quick Tips For Stopping SPAM

Eight Quick Tips For Stopping SPAM

by: Cavyl Stewart

If you are buried in SPAM then you’re not alone. Itกs been suggested that as much as 50% to 75% of the email traffic on any given day is SPAM. Reading through SPAM is a waste of your time and it subjects you to potential viruses, trojan horses, and sexual material which can be quite offensive. Here are some tips on how to win the SPAM war:

1. Use a throwaway email address when posting to public news groups and chat rooms and for your Yahoo or MS Messenger Chat accounts. You can get free email addresses at Yahoo, HotMail and other places. Use your personal ISPprovided email address only to communicate with trusted sources. If you are an AOL user then set up an additional email account to use for public posting purposes. When your free or spare email account starts getting abused just close it and open another.

2. Take the time to set up different email addresses for different purposes. Have one for business communications, another for personal and another one for shopping online. That way you can avoid the risk of exposing one email address to all of your contacts.

3. If you own your own web site then the chances are that your hosting account comes with the ability to create new email addresses on the fly. These are addresses that will automatically forward to your main address. If you have that capability then use a unique address for each web site or mailing list that you choose to join. For example, if your site name is abc.com and you decide to join the mailing list located at xyz.com, you would join using the address [email protected]. If you start getting SPAM to this address then you know that the people who run xyz.com are responsible. You can complain to them and their ISP and you can easily delete that email address.

4. Don’t list your email address on your own web site in plain html or as a link to a contact form. Spammers use automated robots to capture these addresses and add them to SPAM databases. Instead use an email cloaking script whenever you need to show your email address. You can search at Google.com using the phrase กemail cloakingก and come up with a lot of options. Just pick the one that works best for your particular needs.

5. Do not buy anything from a company that sends you SPAM. Not only might the company or offer be a scam but you are jumping right into the fire by letting spammers know that your email address is active and that you buy from spammers. Your address will be sold to thousands of other spammers.

6. Never reply to a spammer or click the ‘remove my addressก link. That only lets them know that your address is good.

7. If your email service or email client comes with SPAM filters use them.

8. You might want to think about subscribing to a SPAM prevention service. Search on Google.com for กSPAM prevention serviceก and review your options.

Following these simple tips could cut your SPAM down by as much as 90%. Wouldn’t that be great!

About The Author

Copyright © 2004 Cavyl Stewart. Discover 52 Ways To Do More With Software by signing up for my exclusive Free ecourse. Get tutorials, tips, reviews and recommendations you can use right now to help you achieve more, easier, and cheaper! 100% Original content. Visit: http://www.findsmallbusinesssoftware.com/52ways.html.

This article was posted on December 11, 2004

by Cavyl Stewart

5 ZeroCost Spam Prevention Tools For All Situatio

5 ZeroCost Spam Prevention Tools For All Situations!

by: S. Kumar

Anyone who uses email knows what Spam is!

Itกs annoying and time consuming to wade through volumes of fraud, con and obscene emails to filter out the really important ones. And I am sure you are affected by this menace in some form or other.

How do we reduce this intolerable amounts of junk?

Here are 5 ZeroCost tools to prevent junk cluttering your mail box. (You can access them all from a single source and the info is given at the end of this article.)

* For the Average Email User *

1. Spam.NDream, For the POP3 Mail user.

By far this is the easiest and effective solution for anyone with a POP3 email ID. For e.g. [email protected].

Spam.ndream.com is a web based service that retrieves all your email for you and sends you only the emails from email IDกs that are preauthenticated by you. This means, no one can send you an email unless you give prior permission.

This service is very effective let me tell you that.

2. SpamPal, The Desktop Solution

SpamPal is a program that sits between your email client and your mailbox, checking your email as you retrieve it.

Any email messages that SpamPal considers to be junk will be ‘taggedก with a special header; you simply configure your email client to filter anything with this header into a separate folder and your Spam won’t be mixed up with the rest of your email anymore!

* For the Website Owner *

Posting your email address on your website is a sure way to attract junk. (e.g. [email protected])

In case you are not aware, there exists special softwareกs that harvest anything with an @ in between. This means, your posted emails are sitting ducks for an avalanche of junk.

1. Enkoder Form 6.0, A Simple Solution for the Webmaster

One way to protect yourself is to กencodeก your address, The Enkoder Form will encrypt your Email address and convert it to a JavaScript, hiding it from Email harvesting robots which crawl the web for exposed addresses.

Simply copy this JavaScript and paste it into your Web page where you want the email to appear.

2. Master SpamBot Buster, A Thorough CGI Solution

Master Spambot Buster stops robots harvesting email addresses from your web pages. But the script does more than that! It completely stops harvesting your email address from:

Newsletters, Newsgroup postings, Discussion list postings, Instant messages, Print ads, Or any other document

Instead of publishing your email address, you use the Master Spambot Buster method so that your email address is protected from everywhere and from all documents.

This is a great software released by willmaster.com

3. NATATA AntiSpam Encoder, Desktop Solution

This program searches for email addresses either from all your web pages or a single page and encodes them all in minutes automatically. Its pure HTML encoding and no Java used.

You do not have to be technically savvy to use this one as it automatically inserts the codes into your web pages. In 2 minutes you can entirely encrypt all your web pages.

This is by far, the best software that I came across

You may access all the 5 tools given above from here: http://www.learnhomebusiness.com/bonuses/spamtools.htm

I hope, these resources will help you to reduce the junk clogging your mail box.

About The Author

Copyright 2003: S. Kumar, http://www.learnhomebusiness.com

Author of eBook:กBecome A Global Homebusiness Pro…ก Direct

Download Here At Zero Cost

http://www.learnhomebusiness.com/HomeBiz.htm

This article was posted on November 04, 2003

by S. Kumar

How Can I Stop Getting Spam?

How Can I Stop Getting Spam?

by: Sean Proske

Are you getting too much spam? We all are, but if you’re a webmaster the word spam takes on a whole new meaning.

It’s not uncommon for the luckiest of email users to receive a dozen or so spam messages each day, while those of us who aren’t so fortunate receive hundreds.

The casual home user tends to be more fortunate, so this article is devoted to those of us with one or more website because webmasters are getting hit by spam … and hit hard.

The reason … a website doesn’t do you much good if you don’t give potential customers a way to contact you, and that normally means posting an email address on your website, where it is vulnerable to email address harvesting tools used by spammers. Domain registration records are also a common source used by spammers.

In order to conduct business online you now need to sift through the endless barrage of offers for herbal viagra, pornography, pyramid schemes, and so on.

With such a large volume of spam to contend with, it’s likely you’ve lost sales due to missing important emails that simply floated away in this sea of spam. And thereกs no way to really calculate the cost of that lost business. If youกve missed email then how can you ever know how much business youกve lost?

If you want to solve the problem, you need to be proactive because the sad reality is that if you do nothing, it will only get worse until finally it reaches the point where your email account has become totally and completely unmanageable. Fortunately there are a few options available to you.

Securing Your Domain Registration Against Spammers

First letกs address the whois database, which is a publicly accessible database in which your domain registration record is listed … and that includes your email address. Itกs not uncommon now for people to be spammed at a brand new email address within hours of registering a new domain.

Go Daddy http://www.godaddy.com is a domain registrar that now offers private domain registrations. At the time of writing this article, they are the only registrar who currently offers this service. Hopefully in time, other registrars will pick up on this idea and offer the service too.

With a private domain registration, which costs only a few dollars more than a regular registration, your contact information including your email address will not be publicly accessible in the whois database.

That’s guaranteed to cut down on spam quite significantly as this very important source of addresses that spammers use, will no longer provide your address to them.

If you don’t wish to obtain a private domain registration, then there is another option that will be equally effective. Set up a new email address that you use only for the purpose of providing registration information for your domain name. You can easily scan email sent to that address for messages from your registrar, and delete the rest without having to read it.

Securing Your Website Against Spammers

The other major source, and by far the biggest source of email addresses for spammers is of course the mailto links on your own website. Email address harvesting or extraction software as it’s known is cheap, easy to use, and readily available … and it’s very effective. That means there are a lot of spammers out there with easy access to your email address.

Chances are hundreds or even thousands of spammers using such software have already harvested your address. And what can you do about this? You need to provide a way for your customers to reach you by email, or youกll lose business. There are steps you can take to prevent your email address from being harvested and used by spammers though, while still providing legitimate visitors to your site with a way to email you.

One solution is to make all the mailto links on your site point to a form instead, which will still provide a means for people to send you email. Provided you use a CGI script that doesn’t require the address to be embedded within the form itself, you can shield your address from email address extractors.

If you don’t want to require people to fill out a form to email you from your website, then you can get a little more creative. It is possible to put a mailto link on your site that when clicked will still launch the sender’s email program, and start a new message with your address in the To field … but without having to embed your email address in the mailto link where spam software can snatch it. Click below to see an example of how it works.

http://thewebhostcompany.com/cgilocal/email.cgi

It looks like a normal URL, and thereกs clearly no email address anywhere in the link, but when clicked, instead of loading a web page in your browser as you may have expected, your email program opens up.

How’s that possible you might ask? Simple. A little magic with CGI using Perl or PHP will do the trick. A free copy of a script that does this is bundled with Postmaster Pro, available at http://www.postmasterpro.com which is discussed below.

What About Spammers Who Already Have My Address?

So far we’ve discussed a few fairly simple techniques designed to prevent spammers from obtaining your email address in the first place. But, how do you deal with the spam you’re already getting? Your address is already out there. The solution is to either block or filter.

For either, youกll need software. For blocking, I recommend Postmaster Pro. If you prefer to filter then Spam Assassin is highly recommended. Both run on the server, so there is no need to download spam before filtering it out. Thatกs a huge time saver if you’re not yet on a highspeed connection. It also makes it a bit less likely youกll end up downloading a virus since email from untrusted senders, i.e. spammers will be significantly reduced.

Spam Blocking Software

Postmaster Pro which is available at http://www.postmasterpro.com takes a novel approach to blocking spam. It only allows email to be delivered after people who’ve sent you email have been placed on an approved sender list. But the interesting thing is that people who send you email can put themselves on your approved list. This is done simply by clicking a link in an email that automatically gets sent to them the first time they send email to you, which is perfect for those of us who don’t know in advance whom we should put on the approved list, i.e. if you’re running a business online. It also makes building and maintaining such a list very simple.

Given the fact that spammers normally use invalid return addresses, and those who do use valid return addresses seldom read email thatกs sent there, let alone respond to it (they receive thousands of failed delivery notifications, complaints, remove requests, and autoresponder messages every time they do a mailing) … it’s a very effective technique with no chance of blocking legitimate email, as is the case with filtering.

Spam Filtering Software

For those who would prefer to filter … Spam Assassin is perhaps the best option. It is available at http://www.spamassassin.org. Once you have Spam Assassin installed, it will provide you with very powerful and flexible filtering tools. Spam Assassin is a mature product, having been around for quite some time. If you’re going to filter, Spam Assassin is about as good as it gets.

As with any filter though, you do run the risk of missing legitimate email from time to time. There really isn’t a good way to tell how often this is happening unless you want to read all the email that gets filtered out, which negates the whole point of filtering. If you set your filters permissively enough though, you should be reasonably safe. For the first month or so after installing any filter, you should continue to read every single email in order to make sure it isn’t set too restrictively to allow legitimate email through.

By using the techniques mentioned in this article, you can take back your mailbox, and dramatically reduce, if not eliminate spam.

About The Author

Sean Proske is the CEO and founding partner of thewebhostcompany.com which has provided reliable and affordable hosting since 1996.

http://www.thewebhostcompany.com

mailto:[email protected]

[email protected]

This article was posted on June 24, 2003

by Sean Proske

Avoid, Shun, Thwart, Prevent, and then Filter Spam

Avoid, Shun, Thwart, Prevent, and then Filter Spam

by: Nick Smith

Email is rapidly becoming the standard means of communication among businesses, associates, and even friends. While many people have now been using the internet and email for years, there are thousands of new users on the internet each day. With inexpensive web hosting, free email services, and the blog burst upon us, getting your own slice of the internet pie has never been easier.

Whether you’re a seasoned professional looking for a refresher course, or you’re new to the internet and email and want to start off right, here are some easy steps to follow to reduce the amount of spam you receive.

Don’t choose an obvious email address. Spammers will generate lists of email addresses based on common names. A common list would be something like: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], etc. If you create an email account with less obvious combinations of your name plus some numbers, chances are better that you won’t find your way onto one of these lists.

Treat your personal email address with care. Only give out your personal email address to close friends and family who you trust. Give your direct business email only to clients and other contacts you trust to only use your address for legitimate business purposes.

Use different accounts for different functions. Create different aliases with your business’s domain name or create a few free accounts from free email servers like Hotmail, Yahoo!, Excite, etc. Use one account that you don’t care about for posting to forums or discussion groups. Use another to subscribe to newsletters and newsgroups. When any of these addresses starts to get spammed too heavily, simply delete the account and switch to a different one.

Remove your email address from your website. Between blogs and cheap web space, it seems everyone has their own piece of cyberspace. Before you put a link to your email address on your site, remember that spammers have bots that harvest these addresses. They will even find addresses printed in plain text. Consider using a webbased form for communication from you website, or place your address as a gif or jpeg.

Do NOT open, respond to, or purchase from spam. Interacting with spam in any of these ways indicates to the spammer that not only is your address valid, it’s also active. Do not respond with ขunsubscribeข in the subject line, or click on any links to remove your name out of the database, as both of these are common ploys to confirm your email address. Remember, because sending email is so inexpensive, spamming can be profitable even if only a small percentage of people purchase what they’re selling. Don’t support what you’re trying to stop.

Finally, Filter your incoming email using filtering software. Even if you guard your email address religiously, you’ll likely still receive spam. Filtering software is usually inexpensive and effective, but there are some important features to consider with any filtering package:

Make sure you can control what comes to your inbox and what gets deleted. The best programs create a spam folder for you to review before permanently deleting emails.

The software should block images from incoming emails. Many jpegs in spam actually hide code that notifies the spammer when the email is viewed. Blocking images will not only keep offensive content off your screen but will also help prevent more spam in the future.

Choose software that provides you with updates as new spamming techniques are created and proliferated, filtering software should keep up.

While eliminating spam from coming to your email address is nigh unto impossible, following these simple steps will mean you’ll have to spend less time deleting spam from your inbox, giving you more time for the important things of life – like reading this article.

About The Author

Nick Smith is a client account specialist with 10xMarketing.com More Visitors. More Buyers. More Revenue. Find more information about how to filter spam at http://www.contentwatch.com/features/filterspam.php.

This article was posted on December 15, 2004

by Nick Smith

ANTIS*P^A#M: Protecting Your Web Siteกs Email Add

ANTIS*P^A#M: Protecting Your Web Siteกs Email Address(es)

by: Maria Marsala

Did you know that there are software programs that view web sites and steal email addresses? Itกs called กharvestingก because they’re harvesting your email address from your site. This may be one of the reasons your web site email address is receiving more s*p^a#m than wanted email.

When I first started teaching web design classes, I strongly suggested that students place their email address on each page it makes your site a bit more ‘trustable.ก But it turns out this is just leaving you wide open to harvesting.

So now, what I suggest are links on each page directed to a single contact information page, where your email address is encrypted. If the s*p^a#mmers end up figuring out the encryption, itกs still easier for you to change one page worth of information vs. many pages of information.

Encrypting your email address makes the gathering process a little more difficult while it provides that legitimate email get through to you.

If you find that one encryption program has stopped working, see if the provider updated the code you were using (many provide regular updates) or change to another service.

Do you have PayPal payment or shopping cart links on your site? Up until about a month ago, the old PayPal coding included your email address. If you haven’t upgraded recently, update your PayPal links to include the encrypted code they provide, too. Changing that code stopped quite a bit of unwanted email from reaching me.

Here are some helpful encryption program resources:

http://automaticlabs.com/products/enkoderform/

http://www.robertgraham.com/tools/mailtoencoder.html

http://natata.hn3.net/antispam_encoder.htm

http://www.tucows.com/preview/266685.html

http://innerpeace.org/escrambler.shtml

http://www.wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html

http://w2.syronex.com/jmr/safemailto/

Encryption programs A VERY good thing to use on your web site to reduce unwanted email.

About The Author

Elevating Your Business. Since 1998, Maria Marsala, a former Wall Street Trader, has worked more than 1000 women (and men) who own service business to increase their profits, save time, and live rich, fulfilling lives. Visit www.ElevatingYourBusiness.com to request your 2 business reports and join our business building newsletter or forum.

This article was posted on April 09

by Maria Marsala

Is There A National Do Not Spam List?

Is There A National Do Not Spam List?

by: Gary Gresham

You may have already received a do not spam list email, seen a web site or even heard a radio advertisement that promises to reduce spam email just by submitting your email address.

Since the federal กDo Not Call Listก became law in 2003, it seems logical that a do not spam list exists also. But even though it sounds legitimate, don’t believe the hype or the official looking emails.

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) attorneys, who are experts at fighting spam email, a national do not spam list registry would not be effective at this time for many reasons.

The FTC says the high risk of a list like this would actually result in more inbox clutter because illegal spammers would use the registry as a กdo spamก list. So the FTC is advising consumers not to submit their email addresses to any organization that claims to be creating a do not spam list.

The FTC also says emails and web sites that claim to offer a national do not email list or registry could be part of a hightech scam to trick consumers into disclosing their email address or other sensitive personal information.

According to the FTC, these web sites and emails may be a way to collect valid email addresses to sell to email spammers. The result could be even more spam for anyone who signs up for the do not spam list.

Or, it could be worse because some scammers have collected information through bogus web sites that mimic those of legitimate organizations, and then use the information to commit identity theft.

If you have already submitted your email address to a national do not email list or registry that promises to reduce the amount of spam you receive, you may be a victim of one the latest email scams on the Internet.

Should you get an unsolicited email claiming to represent a do not email list or registry, an organization to stop spam, or even the FTC itself, forward it to the FTC using this email address [email protected] .

If you believe you have already been scammed, file your complaint at FTC File Complaint, then visit FTC Identity Theft Resources to learn how to minimize your risk of damage from identity theft.

You can choose to ignore a do not spam list email or help the FTC with their efforts in fighting spam by forwarding any suspicious emails to them. The important thing is that you don’t become a new victim of the do not spam list email scam.

Copyright © 2005 SpywareInformation.com All Rights Reserved.

About The Author

Gary Gresham

This article is provided by http://www.spywareinformation.com where you will find free spyware cleaners, downloads, removal software and valuable tips. For regularly updated articles about adware, spyware and protection from identity theft go to http://spywareinformation.com/articles_1.html

This article was posted on August 10

by Gary Gresham