Are These Common Email Mistakes Costing You Business?

by Doug West

I hope that you have already learned not to type your email in ALL CAPS as that is considered YELLING. Also, if you are doing business, I hope you are not one of those that types in all small case letters - no CAPS!

When I get an email like that it tells me the person is too lazy to hit the shift key, and is probably not the type of person I would want to do business with. Those are just some basic points about email, but we wanted to cover a few others that could make or break your online business.

Here is one of my pet peeves. You see something that you like, perhaps you may want to get it later, so you file it away in your email program. When you are ready to purchase the item or service, you email the person to tell them that you are ready to buy, and guess what? The email bounces back at you faster than a hot check.

You carefully investigate to see that you have not made a mistake, or that there has been some kind of mail server problem. Maybe you send the email from a different account or method. Maybe you have more than one ISP so you try another one. Sure enough, the email comes right back at you.

What does all this have to do with your biz? Here is the tip, and this is HUGE if you want to build a biz on the net:

Get A Business Email Address & Never Change It - NEVER!

We have done business with some folks who seem to change email addresses every week. One man bragged that he had over 20 email addresses (and you could never get him to answer you at any of them).

Changing your business email address is like moving your brick-n-mortar biz. What if your favorite store moved every week, and never told you where they were going? Or worse yet, you notice a new shop or store of some kind that you had not yet had the chance to visit, but were planning to. By the time you get ready to go, the thing has packed up and moved to a new location and left no forwarding address.

This is SUICIDE for a business! Don't do it!

Some online entrepreneurs think they can beat this rule by sending everyone their new address each time they move. But what about potential customers that are not yet on any of your lists? Those that have been thinking about contacting you. We get orders and business from ads that we have ran YEARS ago. Not every day, but they do trickle in, and every bit helps your business to stay in business.

DON'T DO IT! Don't try to beat the system. Get one address and keep it forever for your business. Sure, you can have a separate address for your personal email, and it is OK to change that one (just be sure to let your friends and family members - at least the ones you want to have it- know where you moved to) if you want - BUT - NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NO - NOT EVER do you want to change your business email address - Just DON'T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So how do you get one that you can keep forever? The best one is at a domain you own. You@yourdomain.com or Sales@yourdomain. If you own the domain name, you can keep it for as long as you live or longer (as long as you pay the bill).

If you change ISPs just forward the email to a new address or box so that you still get all the mail that goes to your biz email address. Most servers have pop boxes that you can set up to catch your email (and most of them have limits to how much email they will hold so you better download your email fairly often).

There are even services out there where you can set up a pop box once you buy a domain name (don't worry if you're not a techie, all you have to do normally is fill out a form or something and your pop email box is up and working for you - ready to catch your email). You don't even have to have a web site hosted anywhere, just buy the name and many domain name registrars will Give you a pop email box and/or email forwarding.

BUT I DON'T WANT OR NEED A DOMAIN

Domains names are so cheap anymore I can not imagine anyone trying to run their biz from a hotmail account or an AOL (the worst dial up ISP by the way) account, or any other account that may close them down, or close down altogether.

Another Option

You could also take out one of our Follow-Up responders (you need at least one of these to run your biz anyway), and any email that gets sent to:

yourname@oiopro.info

Will be forwarded to whatever email address you give us. We will have to change it for you when you change ISP or email accounts. But just let us know and we will be happy to do it for you.

Don't Use Funky Backgrounds Or Stationary In Your Biz Emails

If you are reading this in our HTML format, it is probably because you asked for HTML email. We always give folks the option of reading our issues online or they can subscribe to a Text Only list.

If you want to impress Grandma or Mom with your ability to add a color or image to the background of your email, I guess that is OK. BUT, Never use a color ANY Color or image as a back ground in your business emails. We are not talking about all HTML email here (if it has a color background it has to be HTML), but those Funky background colors that make email SOOOO hard to read. DON'T DO IT!

Plain black type on a standard white (no color) background works best. Many folks (especially outside of the US) are still not able to read html or color email, so you will be losing them. Even if they can read html email, your funky colors and/or stationary images may impede them from seeing your whole message. SO DON'T DO IT! Not in your business.

Fancy will lose customers for you when it comes to email. If you do send something in html, always give the option to read it online where they can look at your message through their browser (which can see html), but still you need to have a color scheme that does not hide your message, or make it hard to read. Funky looking web pages are a whole other topic that we will cover right here in another article.

One last thing on email. There are starting to be a lot of these Spam killer type service that block all your email until someone clicks here or goes there and fills out a form or some such thing. DON'T USE IT - not with your business email account. You will lose business.

Learn to use your email program to filter out SPAM for your business account. You want the option to look at it all anyway, butyou sure don't want anyone else having control over what email comes through to your business. It will cost you sales.

Put these simple rules to use and watch your online biz grow as more and more customers can not only find you, but can understand what you are telling them, and can easily make their purchases from you - now and for years to come!