Here are some easy and free ways you can promote your newsletter to gain subscribers.   Print off a quick copy and then check off each promotion strategy as you complete it.

- Add a subscription form to every page of my website
- Edit email signature to include info about my newsletter
- Edit signature on forums to include info about my newsletter (where allowed)
- Post newsletter info in any forums you visit regularly (where allowed)
- Tell people about it!
- Offer a cool freebie (ethical bribe) for new sign ups
- Add a free sample issue to your website
- Include a printed note about it on invoices or receipts with your orders
- Print the info about it on your business cards (the back works well)
- List it in free ezine directories
- Swap ads with other newsletters who share your target market
- Write and submit an article to the article banks with your info at the bottom
- Link to your newsletter or put a subscribe form on your blog
- Link to your newsletter or put a subscribe box on your social networking pages
- Run a contest for subscribers
- Ask your subscribers to share the newsletter with friends or family

Work at home mom extraordinaire Michelle Shaeffer publishes The Muses Brainstorm, a weekly ezine with tips to help you balance, manage, and market your home based business. If you’re ready for inspirational guidance and bright ideas sign up free at http://www.thesmallbusinessmuse.com

It’s a newsletter publishers nightmare–being accused of sending spam and then blocked from reaching their subscribers.

One of the most difficult things to deal with is being accused of spamming.   It can cause all sorts of frustrations.

If you use a newsletter script hosted on your own website it can result in your IP being blacklisted and then you’ll have trouble getting your regular business email delivered (not just your newsletter).

If you use a third party hosting service, your domain email won’t get blacklisted, but your newsletters won’t reach your subscribers.

You don’t want either of these things to happen!

How can you avoid it?  Some people will click the “Spam” reporting button instead of unsubscribing, no matter how easy you make it, and then you’ll need to deal with getting de-listed, but there are some ways to protect yourself from being accused of spamming.

1) Don’t Send Spam

This sounds obvious, I know, but many small businesses don’t realize exactly what spam is.  Spam isn’t just the ads you get for stocks, medicines, or winning international lotteries.  It’s any unsolicited commerical email.  Unsolicited means you sent it to someone who didn’t specifically request it.

What does this mean for you?  Don’t take your entire contact list of emails and add them to your newsletter!  Do not add anyone who has not requested specifically to receive sales related emails from you.  If at all possible, you need an IP address and timestamp proving they requested it (third party newsletter hosts will track and keep this information for you).

In addition, you MUST comply with the CAN-SPAM act by providing an unsubscribe link in every newsletter you send, as well as your complete postal mailing address.  If someone requests removal you need to remove them promptly and be sure they stay removed from your list.

2) Double Opt-In Only

Always require double opt-in.  This means after the person gives you their email address, a verification email is sent that they must respond to (usually by clicking a link or replying to the message) in order to be added to your list.  This ensures that the email address is correct and current.  It also means you’ve got two methods to prove to a service provider who thinks you’re spamming that the email address did want to receive your newsletter.

3) Ask Your Subscribers to Whitelist You

The process varies depending on what email service your subscribers are using, but include a note at the top of your newsletters asking your subscribers to please whitelist your email address or add you to their friends list.  If they take this step you’re much more likely to end up in their inbox instead of their junk mail folder.  You could use something like, “So we can be sure you continue receiving great tips from us to help you run your business each week, please take a few seconds to add yournewsletteraddress@yourdomain.com to your whitelist or friends list.  Thank you!”

4) Include a Permission Reminder and Note About Unsubscriptions

Sometimes people forget that they’ve subscribed to a newsletter (be sure you send out regularly so your subscribers don’t forget you!).  To help jog their memory, you can include a permission reminder somewhere near the top of your newsletter.  “This newsletter is only sent with permission to those who’ve requested it at our website www.yoursite.com but if you’d like to change your address or unsubscribe just scroll to the bottom of this email and click the link.”  If it’s easy to see where/how to unsubscribe, people will be more likely to use that feature instead of reporting you as a spammer.

5) Run Your Newsletter Through a Spam Checker Before Sending

Once you’ve completed writing your newsletter, take time to run it through a reliable spam checker.  Some services (like GetResponse and Aweber) have this feature built-in.  If your sending service doesn’t, here are two good free ones:

spamcheck.sitesell.com — This site will give you a “Spam Score” and recommendations on how to reduce it.

programmersheaven.com/webtools/Spam-Checker/spamchecker.aspx  — This tool checks based on SpamAssassin and SpamBayes rules.

6) Keep Tabs on Your IP and it’s Blacklist Status

There are lots of different blacklists out there that your IP address may get added to if you are accused of spamming.  Your IP address is sort of the numerical version of your domain name, except it’s not always unique to you and is probably shared with other sites hosted by your website host, unless you have an SSL certificate or other reason for your own unique IP.  You don’t need to worry about this with a third-party hosted newsletter service because they monitor their IPs, but if you’re hosting your own newsletter, then check your IP status at the following websites:

mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx
mail-abuse.com/lookup.html
rbls.org/index.html

What can you do if you’re blocked for spamming and stuck on a black list?  If you get placed on a blacklist you’ll need to request removal.  It sounds a little intimidating, but it’s really not a scary process.  When you receive a bounce notice that assumes your newsletter was spam, look closely to find the service provider who bounced you.  Start at their website and do a search to see what you can find about their spam list and removal process.  If you can’t find how to remove yourself from their blacklist, a phone call to their customer service department should help.  Your website host may also be able to guide you through getting your IP de-listed.

These six tips will help you keep your newsletter successfully able to reach the inboxes of the people who’ve subscribed.

Work at home mom extraordinaire Michelle Shaeffer publishes The Muses Brainstorm, a weekly ezine with tips to help you balance, manage, and market your home based business. If you’re ready for inspirational guidance and bright ideas sign up free at http://www.thesmallbusinessmuse.com

You need to know what you want and need before you start looking for an e-commerce solution.  The more details you plan in advance, the better off you’ll be.

As a website designer I worked with clients all too often who had chosen their e-commerce solution only because it was “free” or because their website designer recommended it.  Your designer can be a wonderful resource in choosing the right e-commerce solution, but only if they know enough about your needs and the available options, and are used to working with a variety of e-commerce solutions instead of focusing only one or two.  One size does not fit all in e-commerce.

Start with a “wish list” of all the features your ideal e-commerce solution would have, and rank them by priority.  Know which features are absolute “must have” and which you can be flexible on.  Digital product delivery may be critical for your business.  Or you might need a specific payment gateway but can be flexible on shipping.  These are the types of things you want to know before you start shopping for your ecommerce solution.

Here are some of the biggest areas you need to consider:

*    What level of technical skill is required to update/manage the e-commerce solution?  Some are more user friendly than others.  Be sure to try a demo before you make your choice.  All e-commerce solutions will have a learning curve, but some will be easier than others.  Look at the support options available for learning – what’s available?  User guide?  Video tutorials?  Support helpdesk?

*    What payment methods will you accept?  PayPal?  Credit Cards?  This is important to know before you choose because not all e-commerce solutions work with all payment gateways.

*    How will you charge shipping on your items?  Do you need real time shipping quotes (UPS, USPS, FedEx, or other carriers)?  Or will you use a table method, percentage or flat rate shipping?

*    Do you want to offer coupons or sales?  What kind?  Do you need to limit sales to particular categories or products or limit the number of times a coupon is used?

*    Do you need your cart to track your inventory for limited quantities or one of a kind items?

*    If you offer digital products (PDF ebooks, MP3s, etc) do you need instant delivery of the products through your ecommerce ssytem?

*    What is your budget for the total cost?  Keep in mind that in addition to any license fees, you need to budget for a designer, possibly an SSL certificate, and support for your chosen cart.  Often a licensed cart works out to be less expensive than a free cart when you add in the customization and support expenses.

*    If you are planning to have your sales drop shipped or are working with a product fulfillment company, check that it can be integrated smoothly.  Your drop shipper should be able to guide you to the systems that work with their systems best.

Some other features you may want to consider:

*    Can you manage your entire website with the ecommerce solution, or does it only manage your products?

Some shopping carts are designed as “whole site” solutions where you can add informational pages, change your site layout, and more from within the shopping cart administration.

Other carts are designed as “add on” solutions where you either add small “add to cart” buttons to your existing website pages, or you link to a webshop but keep your informational pages on a separate website.

*    Is it “search engine friendly” or will you have a hard time getting traffic from the search engines?

To be search engine friendly, a cart should allow you to control your page titles, descriptions, keyword tags, image names, etc.  The URLs it generates shouldn’t be full of characters like ? and & and = but instead look like real words (preferrably your product names).

*    Do you want something that’s fully branded and integrated into your domain name/website or do you want to start smaller with an ecommerce system that’s hosted such as an Etsy Shop (etsy.com), Hyena Cart (hyenacart.com) or eBay Store (ebay.com)?

Once you have a list of the features and functions you need in a shopping cart, it’s time to look at your options.  Compare them one by one to your list of needs and you’ll be able to find the one that will work best for your website.

Michelle Shaeffer is the CEO of Creo Communico LLC, a website hosting and design firm exclusively for small and home based businesses. Our mission is to provide affordable website hosting along with resources and support to help our clients succeed, including 300+ video tutorials, a choice of free site builders, and dozens of easy install scripts. Visit www.creocommunico.com today for a selection of free website management guides on domain names, website hosting, e-commerce and more.