In EBB, we do not require you to send both HTML and text, and we do not bother providing a way of doing that manually.
The reason for this is because all major email clients support HTML.
Up to a few years ago, it was common practice because there were still a few email clients that didn't support HTML.
There are still quite a few blogs around that say you should send both HTML and text, but most of those are from a few years ago.
We do not think it is necessary any longer to do this, and in our experience it does not seem to matter when it comes to spam filters.
There are a lot of ways to collect subscribers, and we encourage you to be creative in building your list.
However, not every email address that comes across your desk represents someone asking to be subscribed to your list.
To help guide you, we've put together this list of situations where you may end up with an email address, and whether or not addresses that you get that way should be added to your Easy Business Builder account.
If you have a situation that you feel isn't covered by any of these, contact our Support Team with details and we'll be happy to advise you.
Situation | OK? | Why? |
People are coming to your website and entering their email addresses to get the specific information that you are going to be sending via Easy Business Builder. |
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Perfect! This is the most typical use of an Easy Business Builder account and exactly what we like to see. Permission is directly given, and clear expectations are being set and followed. |
You bought a list of "business opportunity seekers," "fresh optin leads" or any other type of list. |
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Lists purchased from anywhere would not be allowed within Easy Business Builder. As we are a consent-based service, any subscriber that you are bringing into the system would have had to agree to receive specific, relevant information from you directly. With a purchased list, no matter where they are found, they do not have any of those permissions and have no audit trail that we can follow to see how they were collected. Such lists will never be allowed within Easy Business Builder and importing them could get your account terminated as these lists violate our terms of service. |
You meet Joe at a business lunch, conference, etc. After talking, you realize that you may be a good fit to do business together in the future. So you exchange business cards. |
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While you're perfectly free to contact someone like this through your personal email, adding them to an Easy Business Builder list assumes they wanted to subscribe to an organized mailing list. When this permission isn't given, sending them anything from a bulk mailer would be considered spam. You can always invite them to subscribe your list at any time, at which point if they agree, you would be able to add them. |
You connect with Joe on LinkedIn, Facebook or another social network. |
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Being connected through a social media service like LinkedIn, Facebook or any social network is not the same as having permission to send them emails. Just like the previous scenario, if you invite them directly to join your list, that's perfectly fine, but you can't assume permission just because of social network connections. |
You run a contest to win a free lunch. You set up a fishbowl and people drop their business cards in it to enter. |
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Since there isn't any notice given to people that they would be emailed by you by entering this contest, you wouldn't want to add such subscribers to Easy Business Builder. Remember that people would always have to know what they are signing up for beforehand. |
You set up a fishbowl for people to subscribe to your newsletter. You state that each month one new subscriber will win a free lunch. |
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This is the correct way to collect the subscribers from the situation above. They'll be expecting emails from you and that is what you will be providing. Such subscriber lists are fine to import. |
You've been using an online opt-in form or in-store signup sheet to collect addresses for some time now, but you've never done anything with those addresses. Now you're ready to. |
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This is going to depend on how long you have had them, as someone who signed up last week and someone who gave their email address two years ago are not equal. Permission is specific: subscribers are asking a specific person - you - for a specific piece of information, at a specific time. As time passes, so does their interest and the likelihood that email is still being used. If it's been more than a couple months since someone has been contacted, that permission is stale. If it's less than that, you would be fine. Keeping addresses separated or organized by date can help make this process easier. If you have a list where older and newer addresses are intermingled together, it is often safer to toss the entire list than import. The longer it has been since the initial contact, the less likely the person will remember what they signed up for, and more likely that they may mark your email as spam, or their address may bounce messages from being outdated, which can all damage your deliverability. |
You go to a trade show. Prior to the trade show or after, the organizer provides you a list of the attendees and their contact information. |
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As these lists are handed out to multiple people, they are not specifically agreeing to subscribe to your list. So you will not want to import them into Easy Business Builder. |
You go to a trade show. At your booth, you provide a signup sheet, or a box/bowl for people to drop their card in specifically to get on your list. |
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Unlike the situation above, these subscribers are agreeing to receive information from you directly so they are perfectly acceptable to import. |
You're a member of the local Chamber of Commerce, and you're provided a list of the other members and their contact information. |
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If people haven't requested information from you, don't add them to your list, regardless of whether or not they're a fellow business owner in your area. Having an available email address does not mean you have permission to send to them. |
You export your Contact List from Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail, etc. |
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Permission isn't taken, it is given. Don't just add people to your list because you have their email address. Add them if they gave it to you in order to get on your list and want to receive information from you. |
You own a restaurant, bar, coffee shop, etc. On each table, you leave a pencil and a card offering your newsletter. |
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Just like the fishbowl signup - as long as people are leaving their email address specifically to get on your list, that's perfect. |
You offer email support on your website, have a comment box or have a comment section for your blog or page. |
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They may have had a question about your product, but they didn't ask to be subscribed to your list. Adding them to one isn't a good way to build trust and credibility. When you reply to support emails, use your signature line to include a link to your opt-in form. |
You're in charge of a group of coworkers who are working on a project. You want to use Easy Business Builder to send them notices about meetings, changes in schedule, and other related information. |
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Coworkers or not, anyone who you email with Easy Business Builder must ask you for that information specifically. Spam complaints from coworkers are just as serious to ISPs and to us as complaints from any other subscribers. Make sure that you personally check with each member of your team and get their permission prior to importing them into your Easy Business Builder account. |
You have a list of email addresses you collected from Facebook fans and Twitter followers, who you think would want to receive your email newsletter too. |
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You would still want to ask your viewers if they'd like to get your newsletter, directing them to a form on your site to sign up. But don't add them without specific permission since being a fan or follower does not itself mean they agreed to be emailed by you. |
You were provided some subscribers with a program you're working with in order to help get you started. |
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Much the same with purchased lists, ones provided to you as part of package or otherwise would not be allowed within our system as we would have no idea where those subscribers came from. Even if they have shown interest in the program overall, they would need to sign up to receive information from you in particular. |
You participated in a giveaway with others and were provided with a list of emails that had entered this contest. |
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This will depend on the nature of the giveaway. If your content is all that was sponsored in the giveaway and subscribers were informed they would be added to your list, that's fine. If you took part along with others in that giveaway and the list was shared among the group, you would not want to import those into Easy Business Builder. Subscribers need to sign up to receive information from you directly, and in these cases the lists are being shared with multiple people. Since they aren't signing up to hear from you directly, you would not want to import them. |
To ensure the highest quality, all emails you add to your list must be verified, which is referred to as a double opt-in.
Edit the new lead, click on the Contact tab, and click the blue "Send Verification Email" button to send out a confirmation message.
Once that new lead clicks the link in the confirmation email, you will be able to email them.
By doing this, you can ensure you entered the email correctly,
and this will greatly reduce the chances that you will add a bad email address to your list and generate a lot of bounces.
At this time we do not put limits on the total number of leads/contacts you can have.
However we do limit the number you can email at a time.
That limit depends on your membership level.
See a detailed comparison of each membership level here.
At this time we do not have a way for our users to import a list themselves, however, we will import a list for you.
If you want us to import your list into EBB, open a support ticket. We will have you email the CSV file to us.
Once we review the list, we will get back to you and let you know if it can be imported or if we need any additional data.
If it passes our review, we will import the list into your account.
There is a nice guide in our FAQ's named Can i use this list
Before asking us, there are some rules:
1. We will NOT import a list you paid for. So do not ask.
Paid lists will hurt our send reputation with major email providers due to the high rate of bounces and emails being marked as spam.
Never pay for an email list.
Always build your list yourself to ensure the best quality list.
2. All emails on your list should be "double optins", this means they must have given you their email address and then confirmed that email address.
3. The email list must have had recent activity.
If a list is too old, it could result in a lot of bounced emails and emails being marked as spam due
to people forgetting that they subscribed to your list.
The fresher the email list the more likely it is we'll import it.
Nothing pleases us more than seeing a user coming from an email service provider, and wanting to use our services instead.
However, we must be vigilant when it comes to our send reputation.
If we do not have a good reputation, then the email services we provide will not be of the highest quality.
So if we reject your list for one of the reasons above, do not take it personally.
We are simply looking out for you, and all of our members here at EBB.
We do not provide connection details for the member email address,
because we do not want members routing large numbers of unsolicited emails through our server.
You can check your member email through your dashboard on the Account menu.
You can also compose a message to an individual in your network or reply to an email you received from someone else in your network.
Emails to and from this email address are restricted to your network and you can only email one person at a time.
Example:
Mary, one of your referrals, refers her friend Tom, and Tom upgrades to an Elite Membership for $70.00.
Mary would earn a commission of ($70.00 x 40% professional commission level) $28.00,
but you would get a matching bonus on Mary's $28.
Since you are an advanced member, this would be 10% ($28.00 x 10%), so you would earn a $2.80 matching bonus from Mary's commission.
With our tracking you will see the time, date, ip, and source of every hit.
There will be times the browser the person is using will not send the source
and it will be displayed as Direct/bookmarked.
These stats also show how many times an ip clicked on your link from each source.
Click on the image below to open it in a new window
then in the new window click it again to see the full image.