My New Email Adventure

I sent out an email to everyone on my list today, from my brand spankin’ new address of john@johncarltonemail.com.

This confused a few folks, and it was my fault — I neglected to tell anybody I even HAD a new email address.

This new address was necessary because my former email address — john@marketing-rebel.com — had been compromised. Wasn’t my fault. I was (like so many other unsuspecting marketers) innocently sending out email from that address through a bad/nasty/evil server that allowed spam to flow through it. Without telling me.

And, though I was innocent, my email was nevertheless tainted just being in the same neighborhood as the spammers.

Ugh.

I hate spam, I have never sent out spam, and I resent this entire situation.

Fortunately, there’s an easy fix.

So, here’s what you need to know:

1. If you want to receive email from me — and be sure it doesn’t get snagged by filters or hustled off to your junk folder — you must do the simple “one step” confirmation process explained in that email you just got (from the john@johncarltonemail.com address).

2. This one-step confirmation means you’re “double opted in”, and that’s like a VIP name badge. Email to you will flow through a completely spam-free server, and delivery is now something you can bet on.

That’s really all there is to it.

But it’s still a pain to have to ask you to do it. And, as I said, some people are confused by use of a new email address by me. Others, I’m sure, just plain resent being asked to do even a simple “one click and you’re done” confirmation.

I totally understand.

But email delivery SUCKS right now, for almost everyone. And it’s the spammers fault. They should be hung.

Still, since I’ve upgraded to this new VIP service, you may as well come along with me, and confirm your email. It’s not like I’m bothering you with email, you know. I only email when I have something to say, or something important to share.

And you can, of course, opt OUT any time you like.

For now, though, please read that email from john@johncarltonemail.com… and click on the link. That’s all you have to do.

If you have an email address through Yahoo, AOL, MSN or Hotmail, be sure to check your junk or bulk folders. (For some reason, the filters of the “big guys” seem to enjoy gobbling up my email.)

Because I sent a few emails out through that damaged server — again, not my fault, since there was NO WAY I could have known spammers had taken over that server — many of the large email providers have been slow to grant me “good guy” status again.

So… and allow me to apologize beforehand for this complication… if your main email address is through Yahoo, AOL or MSN… and you KNOW you should be recieving email from me, and you aren’t… then you may have to get another email address from a different company.

Big pain, I know. I’m a small business, though, and we get treated very unfairly by the large Web companies.

This will be a subject worth discussing, and soon, too… because many other small businesses don’t even KNOW their email isn’t being delivered.

They just know their response rates went down.

There are ways around the coming avalanche of email delivery troubles, no matter how small your operation is.

But for right now, the important thing is to make sure you’re getting email from me. That requires the confirmation click… and, if you didn’t get that email from john@johncarltonemail.com, you should first check your junk or bulk folder.

In the meantime, I’ll be using this blog as a “bulletin board” for any important announcements.

Hey — I hope YOUR day is going well.

Mine sure has sucked, so far.

Stay frosty,

John Carlton
www.marketingrebel.com