How To Build A Safe Mailing List - Contains Video

Recently for those of you that are not aware yet, I had a surprise from mail chimp, in the way that they suspended an account I have had for a decade, and was not doing anything different that I know of, except for one thing, giveaways and jv marketing, but mostly giveaways.

I freakin' sell planners and white label commercial use products for heck's sake, and am technically an artist! This only proves, anyone can be a victim, without even realizing they are. If you are affiliate marketing of any kind, you run a risk, even if you are promoting free giveaways. I really do not know exactly what triggered this, (and mail chimp is a HORRIBLE service, no support, and they simply don't respond!) and after more than 3 weeks of scrambling trying to fix this, I have resolved myself to two things.

1: I obviously need to find a new provider, but it is not going to happen fast, once I do, there is the endless task of figuring out, which folks to move, how to move them, or if I should even move them at all. OR should I start totally from scratch, and somehow ask those on the list to resubscribe to a new one, and leave the ones that never do re subscribe behind. It is sad, but a possible true reality.

2: I sorely realize, that even if you are a legit business person, and are selling or promoting legit products, it all boils down to an old saying, you are viewed by who you associate yourself with. 
I was a marketer in the early beginning of the internet game (1995) when I can remember there were literally only 20,000 websites online, and that is an overestimation, more like 5000! I was always an artist number one, and I quit around 2010, and turned directly to creating art and graphics and sold my art to others commercially and created a lot of POD products. 

I became disillusioned as I found a lot of childish drama going on at the time (and still do) only to step back into a world I left earlier, only to find more drama, and to remember why I left.
What does this have to do with point number 2? Guilt by association!! To be more specific, giveaways, and JV and WPlus associations. After more than 3 weeks of mulling it over, my conclusion is that after promoting my old friend David's last business giveaway, the very email that triggered the suspension, was the culprit, even tho I had promoted this, and many other giveaways consistently for over a year coming back to the plr and content arena.

You see these aforementioned events, (giveaways, jv, and w+) do not have the greatest reps on their own. First of all, and I am sure many of you know this, with giveaways, whether you are participating in them, or simply joining for free stuff, you can expect a slew of new emails coming into your boxes from all sides. I have said it before, and the video I am sharing below, if you take the time to listen, validates, that many of these "marketers and giveaway sponsors" share their lists. Unsubscribe from one, and you are still getting 3 more to make up for that, from who, you will be darned if you know !!

Same with being a contributor, or worse actually, because if you care about your email lists, and the people who subscribe to you, then you probably want to stay away from 99% of these so called giveaways, whether they be disguised as giveaways, summits, workshops, brain dumps, side hustles, or any other number of fancy names, the bottom line is to expect many many subscribers who are 1: signing up with bogus emails, 2: serial subscribe/unsubscribers 3: using email addresses that may have already been flagged, will bounce, or even claim you are spam. Who the F needs that!

Now mind you I am not condemning all these practices, I have even hosted some of my own in the past, there are a few folks that put on respectable events, not many but a few. April LeMarr is one of those people, although her events are more a paid bundle than a free giveaway (smarter) and my friend Faith, who just had her first one, because she is a sweetheart and wants to help other business owners, but for the most part, these type of events, given enough time, will come back to bite you, or cause your email client to wonder WTF!!!! and then Boom! it happens more often than you think! 

Honestly, the Big Fish Marketing Pond as I refer to it (the same marketers are still there today, among a lot of new little fish who just wannabe!!) the problem is, the reputation of some of these fish, starting in the old days with what was and still is multi level marketing, black hat tactics, and other shady deals, are bad, and have in some cases even been blacklisted. The reasons range from everything from bad business practices, scamming, and spamming, they have made lots associated with it appear in a bad light too. This is why I think this happened with me. Affiliate marketing in general is seen in a bad light, read the tos of your email provider, and you will see affiliate marketing is not only frowned upon, and discouraged, but could also cause you to lose your provider.

I was talking to a couple other folks last week, who also had the same experience with the monkey service recently, so I will say this now.... BEWARE if you are using Mail Chimp, or any service, because word is they are cracking down, and the lines are being drawn thinner than usual, my guess is because of the amount of scams and spamming that has sky rocketed since the Corona 19 Party! In case you are wondering why I seem to be typing in code, it is because I don't want certain keys to be found in the words I write..

Moving on. I have been experimenting with dozens of services over the last 3 weeks and my head is spinning. It is clear I will not find another that has an RSS service, (MailerLite does, but sorry, their prices are too high for such a small amount of subscribers, and for what I need it will cost a small fortune) so with that said, I will have to resolve myself to not sending out auto feeds, and "pivot" there as well. It is clear also, that based on the amount of people the giveaways have brought me over the last year and a half, that I really should start from scratch, with the exception of some of you that I actually know or have had interaction with. I also think I need to put the heavy brakes on giveaways.

In order to be sure a new list is free from "lookies" I will need to find a way to ask my faithful subscribers to resubscribe to a new list, rather than just import one from other places. Also go from single opt in to double opt in, similar to the way I ask folks to verify their accounts here. Yes there is a method to that madness, it helps keep spammers, and no good doers out, because most people of that sort won't verify twice, or will never see the verification mail, because the email they used was bogus AH HA!!

When I opened the pre launch on the forum here, I was activating some folks who were missing the verification mails myself, from the back admin, but mostly that was because I knew I had not publicly promoted the forum yet. However, I have now stopped doing that for obvious reasons. If someone does not verify their email, the system will eventually purge them automatically.

Altho many email systems work this way as well, sending bounced, and unsubscribers out of the active list, they also take note in your accounts of how many and how often this happens, so watch out, and be sure to keep your lists safe, by following the double opt in rule.

I will more than likely add some content here in the near future, especially to let you all know how I will be restarting my lists, and how and where to re subscribe.... and the company that the below video comes from has been around a long time, and I just might go back to them, a simple but cost effective service.

In the meantime, this is a VERY informative video I am sharing that can benefit each and everyone in business with a mailing list, with safe and respectable strategies and tactics.!

There is an update about the RSS FEED Subscriptions in the member area of the forum. 
HERE

This is horrible!! Now I am afraid.....
I knew that some of that could happen, but lately I have had to people who mail me from their lists, have the same thing happen, only I am pretty sure it was not from mail chimp. scary!!!