47 replies to this topic

[completeadv]

Hello, I was just wondering if other distributors out there receive as many email blasts as I do. I receive on a dialy avg. about 20 from Smartblast, 10 from Promotion Corner, and then there's ASI and not to mention direct ones from supplier's database which can total well over 50 per day. Should we complaim that these email companies send out so many per day. I can recall just 2 years ago i would only recieve a total of about 10 per day, but I think now it's ridiculous. What do you think? Should we just opt-out of these lists or tell these
email blasters to limit their send rates?
Dave-
Complete Advertising Inc.

[adspecip]

50 a day!? I wish I could get only that few.

[completeadv]

tell me about it, that's becasue i already opted out of several other ones.
some do offer good info which is why i stay in some lists but it's still too many.
i don't have a problem with suppliers sending me their direct ads but it's the other email blast companies that send out huge amounts of ads for suppliers , what's to stop them from sending out say 100 ads from 100 different suppliers. if only suppliers knew how many other emails they are sending along with their owned purchased email blast i think they would think twice about advertising with these eblast companies, oh well.

adspecip said:

50 a day!? I wish I could get only that few.

[sdmillar]

Suppliers do know that there has been an ever increasing number of these emails that go out every day. I am signed up to make sure that Ican keep a handle on the level of them and I am disgusted as well. Our company started using this methd a couple years ago and it was quite effective. I can tell you theat we are probably going to get out of it because it has gotten to be oversaturated. It is too bad, because it was a good idea, but I understand that distributors are frustrated by the sheer mass of them and the email companies that do them appear to be greedy enough not to limit them as they said they would limit them in the beginning. I do know a couple that have a self imposed max per day, but the trouble is too many of them do not and that means the total that go out each day has risen to a level of complete annoyance. It's really too bad!

completeadv said:

tell me about it, that's becasue i already opted out of several other ones.
some do offer good info which is why i stay in some lists but it's still too many.
i don't have a problem with suppliers sending me their direct ads but it's the other email blast companies that send out huge amounts of ads for suppliers , what's to stop them from sending out say 100 ads from 100 different suppliers. if only suppliers knew how many other emails they are sending along with their owned purchased email blast i think they would think twice about advertising with these eblast companies, oh well.

[k3of5ks]

This is an ongoing topic of discussion in our office. Too many email blasts! We get them directly from the suppliers as well as SmartBlast, Constant Contact and whomever else suppliers use to blast these out. The unfortunate thing is that not all of them are being read. We're too busy! On a good note I actually save some that I may refer back to and have used a factory due to remembering something I saw.

Not sure what the answer is. I would rather get rid of the Viagra, Cialis, University Diploma, and whatever other spam saturates my inbox on a daily basis first. :)

[Ideaman06]

Way Too Many!

[nicolas]

It has gotten to the point that I donâ??t even bother to open 90% of the email blasts I get since I pretty much know what the contents are going to say, most donâ??t change for months and I get the same email sometimes on daily bases and it tends to overwhelm and aggravate rather than inform, another pet peeve of mine is that the people that design the blast are all in the marketing business yet they try to stuff the email with every thing they can think of, assuming I am going to sit there spend time and read true a page of literature. I think they have spammed them selfâ??s to the point of uselessness. My 2 cents.

[dusty]

nicolas:

i agree 100%. don't think of them as information, just more spam to delete.
do suppliers find eblasts an effective form of marketing? is there a roi for the dollar spent?

[3Koi Maui]

Yes, there are way too many email ads going out. My suggestions, based on my pet peeves:

1. As everyone else has said, cut the number of the repeats of the same ad. It only makes the supplier look deperate.

2. Make the subject line meaningful - Don't be cute, be informative in the subject line. This way I can find the ad again after 'filing' in an email folder. Most ads are now inserted graphics, not text. If I run a search on my email, it will only search whatever text is there in the message on in the subject line. By putting in some appropriate key words I can find your ad later.

3. Put in a clear expiration date, and put it in a consistent location, such as at the bottom.

4. Use an ASI and/or PPAI number in the subject line - this helps me filter ads out of my urgent email and into the ads folder, where I can find them later.

[smartblast]

Hi Everyone, the idea of having an opt-out mechanism on every email blast we send is to make it very easy to get off our list anytime you like. It's that simple.
We even take it a step further- You can opt out of any advertisers message and still remain on the entire smartblast list- This serves to eliminate any ads you'd prefer not recieve from certain suppliers.

We recently have also allowed distributors to download the SmartBlast ToolBar which caters to those who would prefer not to recieve our eflyers in their inbox, but would reside on the toolbar.

And finally, www.supplierspecials.com is where we archive all of our special offers that we send daily. - Just choose the "eflyer archive".

I hope this helps with some of your concerns. Thank you.

Michael Ryan
President
SmartBlast.com

[Chris Miller]

smartblast said:

We even take it a step further- You can opt out of any advertisers message and still remain on the entire smartblast list- This serves to eliminate any ads you'd prefer not recieve from certain suppliers.

Hey Michael,

Myself and some others have discussed this on the site here, and i've never had luck unsubscribing from individual advertisers on smartblast. I unsubscribed from california tattoos over 10 times before finally giving up and unsubscribing all together.

Any chance that a bug still exists that stops us from being able to unsubscribe from individual suppliers, or was this fixed?

[smartblast]

Our opt mechanism is working fine Chris. If for whatever reason you cannot opt out in the future or any of the DistributorTalk members, please feel free to contact us at jonah@smartblast.com. Thank you.

[completeadv]

Chris, I too have taken this measure to unsubscribe from these emails and have had no luck. The issue here is that these email blast companies started out sending us a few a day and now they do not limit their send rates. At what point to these eblast companies say "too many emails a day is too much". Smartlast, you have read above how we as distributors just get so overwhelmed with your emails that we just delete w/out even seeing the actual email bacause you just send so many every day. Are suppliers aware of the amount of ads you send along with their own ads, I'm sure they would not be pleased if they knew how much you are "dilluting the email ad pool".
Anyhow you have the right to do what you feel is ethical and we have the right to ignore your emails. After this I'm sure I will not be on your list any longer :) .

[Chris Miller]

Mike,

There are several other threads on this as well, so you certainly have a valid concern. I think email marketing is becoming less and less beneficial for the suppliers.

However, if they are going to send blasts, I suggest they send them via a service like smartblast. Michael is always on the cutting edge - allowing us to unsubscribe from individual advertisers and that kind of stuff. If this is up and working now, I will certainly sign back up.

The more email marketing companies that popup, the cheaper it will get for suppliers to "blast us" and the bigger the problem will get. I will personally stick with services like smartblast that give us options, and let the other guys go.

completeadv said:

Chris, I too have taken this measure to unsubscribe from these emails and have had no luck. The issue here is that these email blast companies started out sending us a few a day and now they do not limit their send rates. At what point to these eblast companies say "too many emails a day is too much". Smartlast, you have read above how we as distributors just get so overwhelmed with your emails that we just delete w/out even seeing the actual email bacause you just send so many every day. Are suppliers aware of the amount of ads you send along with their own ads, I'm sure they would not be pleased if they knew how much you are "dilluting the email ad pool".
Anyhow you have the right to do what you feel is ethical and we have the right to ignore your emails. After this I'm sure I will not be on your list any longer :) .

[smartblast]

Hello Ross, Email is not for everyone- I hope you find your way to supplierspecials.com to check out current special offerings-

On the other hand, when have helped many distributors across the country in doing more business online ( at no charge I might add)- In addition, we have also been a major contributing factor to the launch of the distributortalk site.

SmartBlast is not just ads in your inbox- It's a tool to allow distributors to easily order samples and catalogs automatically from the eflyers as well as the "branding" of eflyers that allows you to forward end user safe flyers to your customers and prospects.

View our testimonial section online at smartblast.com and supplierspecials.com and you'll see what it's doing for distributors.

Finally, our opt out and opt in mechanism has always been working- I really would need more info to find out what problems you encountered.

completeadv said:

Chris, I too have taken this measure to unsubscribe from these emails and have had no luck. The issue here is that these email blast companies started out sending us a few a day and now they do not limit their send rates. At what point to these eblast companies say "too many emails a day is too much". Smartlast, you have read above how we as distributors just get so overwhelmed with your emails that we just delete w/out even seeing the actual email bacause you just send so many every day. Are suppliers aware of the amount of ads you send along with their own ads, I'm sure they would not be pleased if they knew how much you are "dilluting the email ad pool".
Anyhow you have the right to do what you feel is ethical and we have the right to ignore your emails. After this I'm sure I will not be on your list any longer :) .

[paragon1]

I like getting the smartblast e-mails. I just take 5 minutes to look through them each day. It goes like this: Seen that, seen that, seen that, oooh this looks interesting click get catalog click get samples, seen that, Oh I could try this product on this customer, seen that, seen that, there's a new one, seen that, done.

The more interesting ones I use the customize and forward option, then add the link to a "specials" page on my website. It's an easy way for my customers to see what's new, and drives traffic to the site (and to the phone!).

Anyhow, it works for me.

[3Koi Maui]

smartblast said:

Finally, our opt out and opt in mechanism has always been working- I really would need more info to find out what problems you encountered.

Hi Micheal,

It seems like a couple of people are telling you that they are having problems with the opt out feature. How can you say that it is always working, without exploring the possibility that it is not?

It may well be that they are opting out of your Smartblast and then getting an ad from another blaster. But given that one of the people reporting is Chris, and he is pretty tech-savvy, that seems unlikely in at least one case.

Perhaps someone should try opting out of a particular supplier's ads, then if any more arrive, they could forward the new blasts to one of your Smartblast team.

I was one of your early testimonials, and I still think you invented a great communication methodology (now copied by others). But I also have to say that the blasting is getting out of hand with the multiple blasts of the same information. I'll start utilitizing the opt outs, and see if I can reduce that flow.

Is there any way you can implement a "Tell me once" option for the recipients? That way, like Tivo, I'd only get First Run of any ads, and not the multiple repeats.

[smartblast]

Hello Isa, great to hear from you- In regards to the opt out situation, I have several people testing and looking at some of the previous post regarding this. I also like your idea about forwarding any ads to us that distributors have "previously" opted out of.

Yes, we have been a major contributor of suppliers "specials" in distributors inbox, and I know it's not for everyone ( the daily flow)- so, my suggestion would be to download the SmartBlast ToolBar. In the meantime, we will continue to look for ways to improve our service to you and I wish you all the best!

[Allan]

Ok so now I have a toolbar from Google, one from Yahoo, another from shopalot (not really), one more from bloglist and now I will have one from you. Where will I find the CPU power to be able to surf the net with all of these hidden little programs running, not to mention that I have to punch another hole in my firewall (my wife is getting mad about all the holes in the side of the house :lol: )?

smartblast said:

so, my suggestion would be to download the SmartBlast ToolBar. In the meantime, we will continue to look for ways to improve our service to you and I wish you all the best!

[smartblast]

Alan, I undertand..again...like all services out there, they are not intended for all. We currently have over 1000 distributors using our toolbar- in your case, www.supplierspecials.com might be the answer- good luck.