I thought I’d start a series of emails discussing tools I’ve found really helpful in building my MLM enterprise. I take it for granted sometimes that everyone has been doing this as long as I have and has access to all the same tools I have to build my business. In this series I am going to provide some links to some of the tools I suggest you utilize in your business.

Let’s start by talking about email. One of the very best tools you can use to keep in touch with your team members as well as to prospect is email. Some common uses for email are:

1. Autoresponder series for prospects
2. Autoresponder “getting started” series for new team members
3. Autoresponder “getting started” series for customers to check in with them occasionally and make sure they are happy
4. Email announcements for big events, training calls, etc.
5. Two way discussion list for team members to chat, ask questions, help one another, etc.

IMPORTANT
Don’t use a free email account. If you do get a domain name to point to your email address. You can get a free email redirect and direct your email to go to your Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, MSN, etc. It looks more professional.

IMPORTANT TIP #2
Make sure you don’t send bulk email from your personal account. Also make sure you don’t send bulk email from your desktop. It’s easy to download free software like Worldmerge and blast out emails from your desktop but to the email anti-spam companies it looks like junk mail. Even if they opted in to your emails or asked for your email it looks like spam. The only computers that should send email are email servers. Your desktop computer connects to an email server to send mail. It shouldn’t send mail directly. It’s complicated but basically this is how a lot of spam is sent. Viruses take over people’s home computers and blast out spam.

IMPORTANT TIP #3
The best way to send email is to send all your email through a professional email service! They get paid to deliver your emails. They get paid to check and see if your mail is flagged as spam, etc. These services can ensure your emails get through.

Email Service & Autoresponder
The email service provider I use is called Aweber.  The way Aweber works is pretty cool. They have the ability to setup autoresponders or to send regular emails.  So you could setup a basic autoresponder series for new team members then blast out “broadcast” emails when you have an important announcement or training coming up.  Another really cool feature is you can connect your Aweber email list to a blog’s rss feed.  This means that Aweber can send all your blog posts to your mailing list. You don’t have do anything it does it automatically.

2 Way Mailing List
The two way mailing list we use is jYahoo Groups.  You can create a Yahoo group for free.  Make sure you set your list to moderate new members.  One problem we’ve found is that people from other teams will try and join your group.  This can lead to a lot of extra headaches and problems.  Plus you want to be able to prevent people from joining your group and spamming the group.  The Yahoo group allows people a web interface to check the mailing list and it also sends out emails.  People can get emails as they happen or they can get a daily digest of all the emails from the previous day.  The Yahoo group also has an area where you can store files like training materials, flyers, documents, etc to share with your teams.

Some other email tools
If you want to try a different mailing list service and generate real pretty emails from templates then check out Constant Contact. They have a really nice template system for creating things like email newsletters.  I don’t know if they allow autoresponders.

Another popular autoresponder for network marketers is Get Response.  The features of Get Response and Aweber are very similar. You can do autoresponders, broadcast emails, and also automatic emails from your blog.  One reason why so many network marketers like Get Response is the easy importing of leads into their system.

Finally, if you’re a bit technical and want to host your own email list then there is a free php script called PHP List.  You need your own web site to install it on.  One advantage of PHP List is you can import your own names (good for those of you that buy leads.)  The downside is mailing from your own web site can lead to spam complaints that eventually lead to your web site being blacklisted. I consider using PHP List to be a waste of time.  Since you can use Aweber or Get Response for $20 a month why pay $8 or $10 a month for web hosting and running your own list.  It isn’t worth the time effort, the frustration, the spam complaints, etc.

- Ben Fitts
PS. Tomorrow I’ll talk a little bit more about how I use Aweber in my business.

Popularity: 21% [?]