I’m not an email spam alarmist. If you’ve read any of my stuff you know that I think “opt out” email is perfectly acceptable under most circumstances… and in any event there’s not much we can do about it, even if we don’t like it.

But I would think a credible company (like I assume Kohls is) would have a simple opt-out (unsubscribe) policy.

Not Kohls. After you unsubscribe they tell you your email address will be removed within seven days, during which time you may receive a couple more “alerts”.

This is BS. I suspect it is an out and out corporate lie. I have now unsubscribed at least three times over the course of the last two weeks or so.

We’ll see what happens. In any event I won’t be buying from Kohls…wherever they are.

Youtube.com – This is one of the most widely used and easiest places to find blog content. Say you have a “golf swing tips” blog. Just go to Youtube, search for “golf swing tips” and pick the one you want to include in your blog. Find the embed code and copy it into the appropriate place in your blog. Make sure to accompany the video with a short commentary of your own. You can add links to your commentary, just like an ordinary blog post.

EzineArticles.com – This is the best article site on the web. Search for articles using keywords. Pick the article you want to re-publish. Copy it into your blog, making sure to publish it just as you found it. That includes retaining the author’s “resource box”, links to his or her websites, and all links within the article.

Google News/Yahoo News/Bing News – If you occasionally want to publish a current “news” story, then one of the high profile news sites will give you lots of ideas. For example I just did a search in Bing News (bing.com) for “electronic gadgets” and found:

- Third of teens use cell to cheat
- Sony CEO says restructuring steps on track
- iPhone to hit stores as Apple awaits Jobs’ return

…and many more.

Most of these stories provide good fodder for blog posts. Remember, don’t just copy the news story, and be sure to add your own comments.

Free Original Articles with reprint rights – About the only place you will find top quality free articles is in a membership site of which you are a member. For example, if you are an AgentMapIt member we provide free articles ideal for use in blogs and newsletters. These are high quality, original, “free” PLR articles (PLR stands for “Private Label Rights”). For example, see Free Green Tips.

PLR Articles – You can buy groups of articles that have been written by someone else and bundled as a package of PLR articles. PLR stands for “private label rights”, which means that you can publish the articles as they are, modify them, just use parts of them, and put your own name on them as the author. Most PLR packages are poorly written – often by non-English speakers – and often 5 or more years old. They have probably been recycled several times, so if they are any good they have probably been published elsewhere a number of times. I don’t recommend using PLR articles.

Outsource your blog post writing – There are all kinds of people out there prepared to write quality short articles for next to nothing. For example, if you are using the Categorize and Cycle approach (where you have 4 or 5 categories and try to write on article a week in each) you could have a ghost writer create 5 articles for each of 4 categories (20 short articles). Chances are you can find someone to do this for less than $150. Often they will do it for as low as $5 each. Stretch those articles out over two or three months (you can add your own stuff between outsourced articles) and you have a pretty inexpensive way to create a totally original blog.

Of course different writers will have different areas of expertise, and the writing quality will vary from writer to writer. A good place to find writers is on forums such as The Warrior Forum.

Outsource your entire blog – Finally I would be remiss not to mention our own blogging service. Our Blog and Mail service includes setting up and maintaining your blog, writing and posting unique articles at least once a week, helping you create a contact list, and sending an email to that list at least once a month. In other words, this is an entire marketing program built around having your own blog and regular email campaign. You really don’t have to do anything. We do the entire thing.

This approach is even more effective when integrated with an aggressive Twitter campaign.

As you can see, even if you have very few ideas and have limited writing skills it is not that difficult to create your own interesting and effective blog. However it is important to remember what I said at the beginning of this report: without traffic your blog might as well not exist. The very first thing
you should do is think through how you intend to get traffic to your blog.

In my estimation the traffic generation methods discussed by would-be blogging gurus usually come down to SEO and they do not work for local business blogs. The only method I have found that does actually generate traffic is the Blog and Mail method outlined elsewhere in this blog.

I am not recommending that you buy lists, plug them into your system and just start sending out emails by the millions. This is the worst kind of spamming, and it is illegal. It is also ineffective because most purchased lists are not targeted and they are usually of very low quality.

But what if you take the time to scour through Chamber of Commerce lists and look through local websites to develop your own list from their data. Is that good or bad? This would probably give you a fairly up-to-date list, and it would be targeted because it would be aimed directly at business addresses.

Do Not Spam

First, let’s clarify that sending messages to a list of this sort is not spamming, as long as you clearly identify yourself and give your recipients an obvious way to unsubscribe.

The effectiveness of an email campaign of this sort is a different matter and it depends on several things?

First, it depends how accurate and how targeted your list is.

Second, it depends on how you present yourself in your messages.

And third, it depends on your offer. If it is a good offer some people will respond no matter what they think about your method of reaching them.

Scrubbing Your List

Here’s the strategy in a nutshell. First you find a source of current, up-to-date contacts. Then you enter them into your autoresponder. As they are entered the autoresponder sends out a tactful, helpful message that points them to a quality offer. People on your list can either act on your offer, ignore your messages, or unsubscribe from your list.

As you send out messages over a few weeks or months your recipients become familiar with your offers and begin to recognize your name. Those who are uninterested unsubscribe. So you end up with a qualified list of targeted contacts.

I call this “scrubbing” your list. You start out with a raw list of targeted but unqualified contacts and you end up with a targeted, qualified list of contacts who you can assume are interested in your products.

In most cases this will not be as good as a pure opt-in list, but this system gives you a way to create one of those too. In each of your messages you will include some kind of offer, and that offer involves an opt-in mechanism of some sort – a free report, a new product, a training course, and so on. As people sign up or order these things they get put on a second list – a pure opt-in list.

For more details on how to set up a scrubbing system of this sort, I recommend you subscribe to my email course “Local Web Marketing – The Next Web Goldmine”.

How Do You Feed Your Scrubbing Machine?

Once you have your contact scrubbing system set up, the question is, where do you get raw contact information to feed into it?

Please don’t misunderstand me here. I am not advocating just grabbing email addresses from wherever you can find them. For instance, I am not suggesting you should use an email “scraping” system that scans sites and pulls email addresses out automatically.

What I am suggesting is that you find reliable sources of contact information and enter that information. For example, if you can get your hands on a Chamber of Commerce or business association list you might be able to make use of that list if you do it carefully.

Another way to find local business information is to just sit down and do some good old fashioned research. You might even try telephoning people and asking them if you can send them some information by email. You might be surprised how well this works.

Here are some other ways you can get email addresses that may be helpful.

1. Look in the Yellow Pages. Business are nicely categorized and some ads include emails and web addresses.

2. Look at YellowPages.com. This will give you businesses in specific locations by category. You can click through to websites and find email addresses there.

3. Look in local newspapers and other publications for advertisers. For example a quick look in the local Real Estate promotional publication shows email addresses for almost every agent with an ad. They also have a website for the publication.

4. Find information in advertising fliers, supplements and coupons.

5. Pick up business cards from business card racks in supermarkets and places like the UPS Store.

6. Find local business directories where businesses are listed and advertise.

Remember, the point is to get your list started, and that means sending likely prospects to your squeeze page so you can get them signed up. The scrubbing system I have described here is just one way to do that. We will discuss other ways in a future post.

It boils down to this: it just isn’t worth messing around with a free service with something so vital to your online business. Your regular email communications are probably the most important means you have of growing your business and keeping your customers happy.

For some really good reasons why it is best to stay with an established autoresponder service, see this article,  Why Not To Use Free Autoresponders.