Mar 17, 2008

Legal aspects and implications of e-mail marjketing and related spams laws

Ecommerce can be best described as a marketplace on the internet, which comprises distributing, marketing, buying, selling, and servicing of products or services through electronic systems such as internet or other computer networks. It can be also viewed as an electronic business application targeted at commercial transactions involving electronic funds transfer, e-marketing, supply chain management, online marketing, online transaction processing, automated inventory management, electronic data interchange, and automated data collection systems.

Ecommerce is indeed the most efficient and convenient mode of transactions nowadays, but this business needs strict compliance with laws and related legalities, particularly dealing with marketing, because you are dealing with others’ money.

If you in the ecommerce business, then strictly avoid fraudulent promotions, otherwise you could be charged for spamming under the new CAN-SPAM Act, which was signed by President George W. Bush on December 16; the Act is a federal initiative designed to regulate the most harmful and annoying practices of spammers. Violation of the Act can result in the following consequences:

• Revenue losses and damage of reputation
• Major e-mail service providers such as AOL, Hotmail, and Yahoo! filtering your messages to block them
• ISP may shut down your e-mail account
• Web host may shut down your web site
• Under the new federal CAN-SPAM Act, you can be fined (up to $2 million) or sentenced to jail (up to five years)

Therefore honestly promote a legitimate business to sell real and valuable products or services.

Operate a legitimate business:-

Do not use falsifying headers to force your way into peoples’ inboxes. Avoid using deceptive subject lines, hijacking other peoples' e-mail accounts or computers to send spam, creating e-mail or IP addresses specifically to send spam, and sending unsolicited e-mail with sexual content and emails to people who have requested to be removed from your list. These are malicious ways of forcing messages into the inboxes of people who don't want them, which are not only annoying but are illegal and unprofitable.

Plan responsible e-mail promotions:-

Always obtain permission from the target users before sending them emails. A user must never get a mail that he is not expecting. Avoid buying or renting email lists as they do not promise validity and at times you end up paying for the addresses that are invalid. If you buy email lists, find out how those addresses were collected. If people in your purchased list have not agreed to receive email related to promotion or advertisements, you might land into the troubled waters.

Be very careful while choosing a subject line; it should be self-explanatory about the content within the email. Mention the real return address and place a functional ‘unsubscribe’ link in all the emails. If you have an exhaustive list of emails you will have to seek professional help to install an ASP or any other suitable program to manage ‘opt-ins’ and ‘unsubscribe’ requests. You must send commercial or promotional emails/ newsletters through you’re your company’s official email address.

Finally, stay educated about e-mail marketing and spam laws. Laws and their definitions are changing; therefore obtain regular updates on the related laws.

The Advantage of Freebies Online

It is sometimes difficult for companies to introduce new products or services to the public. Often times the best way to go about this is to simply give away many of the products for free. This is where freebies come in. By giving away freebies online, word of mouth about the product can be established and the company can actually start selling the products for a profit.

Many freebie sites online can offer expensive products such as ipods, digital cameras, and even laptops. While technically these items can be free, participation in other companies' offers is sometimes required. The only thing you need here is simply your time.

In return for getting the freebie, some websites will ask you to try additional offers from the advertiser. This is sometimes necessary for more expensive items, like electronics such as iPods. By participating in these programs, you will be able to get points which entitle you to bigger and better freebies.

Some freebie sites might ask for a small fee to compensate for shipping or maybe just a small trial fee. While you might run into these kinds of freebie offers, there are also 100% free offers that you can take advantage of online as well.

Don't jump to conclusions and think this could be some kind of scam. The freebie industry is huge, and many reputable companies are using freebies to promote their new products and services. The nice thing is, as a consumer, you can take advantage of these freebie offers on your own free will.

Freebies online aren't limited to just high dollar electronics, either. You can have your choice from many different freebie products including coupons, health and beauty products, freebie clothing, free food and drinks, free eBooks, and even free vacations and freebie gift cards. There is really no limit to the amount of free things you can get online. Check out freebie directories online which will point you in the right direction, getting you exactly what you want for free.

People have been taking advantage of freebie products online for only a year or two, the industry is relatively new. With the advent of the internet, it makes it easier for companies to promote products for free since marketing can be done a lot cheaper on the internet. This translates to more freebie products for you to take home and try out for yourself.

It's no suprise that people just love to get stuff for free, and big companies are taking advantage of this fact to draw extra business away from their competitors and back to them. This is the main reason why the freebie industry is completely legal. It is a marketing tactic used by businesses and websites online now, so it's definitely not a scam in any way.

You can start getting freebies online now, with the click of a button and just a little bit of your time. It's totally worth your time, everyone loves to get freebies no matter what it is.

Affiliate Marketing - Making Money on Autopilot

The Internet offers a lot of ways to earn money that didn't exist ten years ago. One of the more popular ways of making a living on the World Wide Web is through affiliate marketing. This method of advertising rewards those who promote a product for a seller or manufacturer by giving them a portion of the sales price when an item sells. As an affiliate, you don't actually make the sales; you simply advertise a product and direct the customer to the site where they can make the purchase. When they buy, you collect.

The system does have its rewards; one of them is that you can promote products around the clock with a Website without having to deal with customers directly. Customers can visit your Website, see your promotion for a product, and click on a link to buy it without any direct involvement on your part. In that sense, affiliate marketing can be "automatic", but prospective marketers should not confuse "automatic" with "no effort."

Many authors of books devoted to the topic of making money sell their books via affiliate marketing. Many of these authors, in order to increase sales, suggest that as an affiliate, you can make money on "autopilot", and that doing so requires little or no effort. They often embellish this even further by suggesting that it is only necessary to work one or two hours a week to make a fortune online. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth about earning money through affiliate marketing is that it is, like anything else you might do, hard work. It is true that you can create a Website with information and links that customers may use to make decisions and purchases. Once you create such a Website, how will customers find it? You have to promote that Website, and doing so is hard work. The online marketplace is a competitive one, and establishing a viable Website while competing against thousands of others can quickly become a full time job. This is particularly true if you create more than one Website to promote more than one product.

Even if you get a lot of visitors to your Website you will find yourself continually making adjustments to the site's content in order to increase the number of visitors who make a purchase. A simple "this product is good - buy it!" will not persuade many visitors to make a purchase. You'll have to do a lot of time consuming experimentation in order to find something that works for you.

Is there money to be made in affiliate marketing? Of course. Anyone thinking that it's "easy money" or that you can create a business in minutes that will start making money today should probably reconsider. As with any business, making money online is hard work.