A Few Strong Words…

There are a lot of powerful marketing words out there. You have likely read articles and blog posts about using words like “free” and “secret” in your headlines, as well as other irresistible phrases to snare your readers.

The problem with many of these words though is that once you set the hook, you still have to reel them in. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a word that made your readers just jump into your boat?

Actually there is, and I’ve already used this word and its kissing cousin nine times in this post, including the title. That magic word is “you”.

Carnegie said it best: “Talk in the terms of the other man’s interest.”

Of course, today he would write “other person’s interest” (or at least his editor would…) The moment you hear or read the word “you”, you immediately prick up your ears because suddenly the conversation is on a topic that is a source of endless fascination. If I talk about you all day, I’ll likely have a captive audience.

One thing I noticed about myself though is that I can write a few pages of web content or some brochure copy, and consciously use the word “you” throughout. But as soon as I’m done, for some reason I just let it go. The rest of the day, it’s suddenly all about me for some reason.

Well, I think it’s time for me to change my errant ways (and perhaps you do too). So let’s talk about some ways that I can talk more about you.

Emails

I try to make a conscious effort to use the word “you” more often in my emails:

“Here is the article I wrote for you.”

“Great talking with you today.”

“I knew that this link would interest you so I forwarded it to you right away!”

Most of the time, the sentence would make perfect sense without adding you, but I think it adds that personal touch without making it too wordy.

Blogs

You are here for you, not me, n’est pas? So injecting more you into my blog posts would just make sense. For example, which blog post title do you find more inviting:

How to Make More Money Blogging

How You Can Make More Money Blogging

The second version subtly but definitely makes a stronger impact. Although the first title may be intriguing, it is not exclusive. The second version is all about you, which by default cranks up the intrigue factor. After all, not just anyone can make more money blogging, just you.

Phone Calls

“How are you today?”

“Yes, you are right!”

“Certainly I can do that for you!”

Using “you” is not limited to writing. You can make everyday conversation more intriguing by sprinkling a few “yous” in there.

When You Becomes Me

Of course the whole purpose of using “you” is to make friends and influence people. (And BTW, if you haven’t read the book — get it now!) The more you focus on other people, strangely the more they start to focus on you. And isn’t that what marketing is all about in its essence?

So make it all about you (by which I mean of course, make it all about me, not you) by making it all about you (by which I mean of course, make it all about them, not you).

Okay, that’s getting a little confusing and Pythonesque, but you get my point…

Any other ways I can make it more about you? You just let me know — leave a comment!

~Graham

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“Can I have reliable email without the spam? I don’t like spam.”

In Part I of this series, we found out how email blacklists can play havoc with what for most of us is our #1 form of communication. The scariest part is that your email could be blocked, and you would never even know it.

But there are ways to find out. One of the fastest ways is to use MXToolbox. This nifty tool allows you to see what blacklists you are on, and provides links to those lists so that you can request to have your name removed. The system checks against 147 blacklists (as of this writing), aka Real-Time Blackhole Lists (RBL) and DNS Blacklist (DNSBL).

Getting Off the Blacklist

To start, go to MXToolbox and type in the domain name of your email address (i.e. yourcompany.com). DO NOT add the “www.” before this. MXToolbox brings up one or several IPs for your domain name, which will be displayed something like: 72.24.123.456

Next to each IP listed, there are two buttons: Diagnostics and Blacklists. Click the Blacklists button next to one of your IPs. On the following page the website will automatically fill in the IP you selected in a text box next to another button that says “Blacklist Check”. Click on this.

You are presented with a report from all blacklists available. With any luck the status column will have a green button next to each list, along with the “OK” message. Feel free to do the happy dance.

However, if you get a red button with the status message as “Listed”, you may have a problem. MXToolbox automatically sorts the report for you so that these are all at the top.

So now what? Each blacklist has different policies about how you can remove your IP address. Some allow you to grovel, apologize, and promise never to commit the sin of spam again, while others simply accept your IP but warn you could be back on the list in 10 minutes. Others send you through a series of cyber-hoops only to send you an automated response (via email; how ironic) telling you essentially that you cannot remove your IP from the list. This can happen if your email comes from a dynamic IP — some lists like SORBS seem to add dynamic IPs to their lists automatically.

To find out how (or if) you can remove your IP from a blacklist, click on the list name, follow the instructions, and hope for the best.

One thing that some of these blacklist companies will say is that you should do a virus check to ensure your computer isn’t sending out spam automatically. This is a good idea in any case. A virus trumps spam any day.

The “Ultimate” Solution

If you are serious about preventing your shared IP getting onto a spam list due to someone else’s questionable activities, you can always get a dedicated server or a Virtual Private Server (VPS) to host your site. (One of my clients is in the process of doing this exactly because of lost emails.) This way, you know that all email coming from your IP is yours and spam-free — unless, again, you have a spam-sending virus!

There are drawbacks to this method though. Dedicated servers and VPSs tend to cost more per month, mostly because bigger companies with higher traffic volume tend to use these. You also have to set up all the server details yourself, which means learning how to do this (highly technical) or paying a web developer or Webmaster to set it up for you. There are also “assisted” dedicated servers which take care of these details, but cost even more per month. In my opinion, you are better off paying someone to set up your server and deal with any other issues on an as-needed basis.

So that’s how you get yourself off of email blacklists. Inconvenient, yes. Impossible – only sometimes. But what fun would technology be if it worked right all the time?

~Graham

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“No one expects the Spammer Inquisition!”

It seems more and more lately that emails I send or emails other people send to me are disappearing. It tends to happen with certain people more than others, and even more puzzling it does not seem to happen all the time. What’s worse is that sometimes there is a notification that the email has been blocked, but most of the time it just vanishes into the ether…

As I’m sure is the case with many writers, I rely on email as my primary form of communication with my clients. So when email disappears without a warning, it is quite unsettling. I did a bit of research and found out that there are many possible reasons, but the most likely causes are all related to email blacklisting.

Email Blacklisting: A Short History

About 10 years ago, self-appointed cyber-vigilantes started creating lists of IPs that were “known” spammers. Companies like SpamCop and The Spamhaus Project put it upon themselves to try to reduce spam by “outing” spammers and putting their IP addresses on a centralized list.

At first, being added to a spam list was essentially meaningless. But then Internet Service Providers (ISPs) started using these lists in their own spam-blocking efforts. Filtering out email from flagged IP addresses was an easy way to reduce spam for their customers. And cheap too, since they didn’t maintain the lists themselves. A lot of emails that are not spam also get caught in this filtering process, but ISPs consider this to be part of the cost of reducing spam.

If you hate spam, you might agree. Any filtering is bound to catch the odd legitimate email. But the truth is that this series of unfolding events have led to a seriously flawed system:

Guilty Until Proven Innocent – There is nobody policing the spam police, and no regulated definitions of what a spammer is. Your IP can be added to any list without warning, reason, or chance for stating your case – it’s up to you to actively look to see if you are mistakenly put on a list. Some companies have many hoops for you to jump through to get your IP address off their lists, and others won’t let you remove your IP at all. So not only are you guilty until proven innocent, in some cases there is not even a way to prove your innocence!

SpamCop even gives the knife an extra twist by making you promise you or anyone else at your IP address will never spam again before removing you from the list – as if you have any control over what other people do. (This is so ridiculous that it reminds me of an old Monty Python skit: “No one expects the Spammer Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise, surprise and fear… Our two weapons are fear and surprise…” Ironically, it was another Monty Python skit that gave us the term “spam”.)

Guilty By Association – Because most of us have dynamic IPs (randomly assigned IPs common among shared website servers and Internet service providers), a person who had the address before us may have been a spammer. What’s worse, some lists will contain the whole range of your service provider’s IP addresses, so it doesn’t matter what IP you are currently using.

The blacklist companies say that it is up to your ISP to prevent spamming, but the reality is that (A) there is no practical way that they could control everything their users are doing and (B) that still leaves us innocents out in the cold.

Guilty By Association Part II – If your email contains a listed IP address or domain name somewhere in the code, it could be blocked. So if your email message contains a link to a website that is on a blacklist, some filters will block the whole email. More commonly, if your email message is relayed through a flagged IP, filters down the line may trash your email – perhaps even before it reaches your own mailserver.

Improper Use of Filtering Software – If the filtering software that your Internet Service Provider (or one of the relay ISPs) has the wrong settings, it could be blocking even more legitimate email than normal. Even companies like SpamCop explicitly state that being on a blacklist is just one thing to consider before blocking an email. Yet some ISPs use this as its only flag, likely because it is faster and easier than taking the time to set up the filtering software properly.

There are likely other causes, but all that mailserver code is making my head spin. I think you get the idea.

The Cautionary Tale

In a rather famous case, e360insight, an online marketer based in Illinois, successfully sued The Spamhaus Project for $11.7 million. The suit claimed, among other things, defamation, extortion, and blackmail that caused “massive harm to its business”.

The Spamhaus Project never bothered to even show up at the proceedings. First, since it only maintains the list and does not actively block the marketer directly, the company did not feel the need to defend itself. And since the blacklist company is based in the UK, the Illinois ruling is not legally binding anyway. The Spamhaus Project will never have to pay a dime. (Read about the whole story here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060915-7757.html

So is this a victory for spammers or for the blacklisters? Either way, I think that the rest of us lose. In my mind, I’d rather deal with the spam than know my email may not have reached my client, or vice versa…

There are things you can do in some cases to get yourself off a blacklist. Stay tuned for Part II of this topic: How to Get Yourself Off Email Blacklists.

In the meantime, let me know if you’ve had a run-in with the Spammer Inquisition!

~Graham

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