The New Evolution In Whitelisting

Imagine this – you post an important letter but, unknown to you, it’s not delivered. Instead, the post office tosses it to one side because they think it’s junk mail. You don’t get a say in the matter. In fact, you don’t even know it’s happened. How would that make you feel?

This scenario doesn’t happen off-line (at least, I hope not) but it is happening every day on-line to the email you send. This means you’re losing money because some of your subscribers and customers are not getting your offers and messages.

More Than 20% of Commercial, Permissioned Emails Are Not Delivered to Inboxes in the United States and Canada.

- Return Path Global Email Deliverability Benchmark Report

As well as losing out on more sales and profits, some of the time, money and effort you put into list building and email marketing is completely wasted. So why is this happening and what can you do about it?

Well, first, this happens because of what email service providers decide as legitimate mail or spam. Sure, spam is a big problem. It affects us all. Heck, I get my fair share and there’s more of it every day I look in my inbox. As a result of this increasing problem, email service providers filter out mail that they think is spam. But they don’t always get it right and mail is sometimes not delivered or it ends up in junk folders.

It’s happening to email you send to subscribers, customers, clients, prospects and suppliers. It happens to my email too. On several occasions, proposals I sent have ended up in junk folders.

Big, household name companies are not immune to this either. Just the other day, one of my clients told me she found an agreement from Sony in her spam folder. She also told me that a doctor friend of hers found a few very important patient emails in his junk folder so he now checks it daily.

Whether you realize it or not, the fact is, not all of the email you send is ending up where it should – in the inbox. So what can you do about it?

Here’s advice straight from the horse’s mouth

What do Google, Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Hotmail and other email providers tell you to do to ensure mail arrives in your inbox? It’s this…

Add the sender to your Address Book, Contacts or list of Safe Senders.

When people add you as a Contact, email providers will deliver your mail to their inbox and not to the spam or junk folder. Here’s what Gmail says…

Gmail will deliver messages from members of your Contacts list to your inbox

And here’s what Yahoo! Mail tells their users to do…

Two ways to help us prevent messages from being identified as spam are: 1. Clicking the “Not Spam” button after selecting a message that’s not spam in your Spam folder. 2. Adding the sender to your Contacts.

This simple task is known as whitelisting. It’s nothing new. I’ve been on-line for about 10 years and smart marketers have been asking me to whitelist them whenever I opt in to their lists for as long as I can remember. Many others don’t.

And now email service providers are placing an even greater importance on the Address Book and Contacts in the fight against spam.

Yahoo! Mail introduced a feature last year that lets you filter your inbox to show just email from senders in your Address Book. I predicted then that this would be adopted by other email providers and, sure enough, Microsoft’s new Hotmail also sorts messages based on the person’s contacts.

So the message to email marketers is loud and clear. If you want your email to be delivered to the inbox, and not sent to the junk folder, it’s vital to be in people’s Address Book and Contacts.

But here’s the thing…

The problem with whitelisting now

The current and most common way that marketers go about getting whitelisted is to present people with a set of text instructions.

So let me see, the process you want me to go through to whitelist you is… I have to open up a new browser window to log in to my email service, or fire up my email program. Then I have to follow a set of instructions on how to whitelist you. If I was a less savvy user, I have to hunt around for the right places to click. So it requires several clicks here, there and everywhere plus some typing in order to add you to my Address Book or Contacts.

Surely there’s a quicker and easier way? I mean, wouldn’t it be more simple and effective if:

• People don’t have to open up a new browser window or their email program and leave your site.
• All it takes is just a couple of clicks and that’s it – you’re whitelisted in a matter of seconds. No need to go through step after step of instructions.
• Your email address is already filled in so there’s no typing required and so no chance of getting it wrong.

Simple. Quick. Easy.

Plus, what if you could also use video instead of text to show people how to whitelist you. Yes, actually show and tell them exactly what to do and where to click. Far more effective and engaging than just text instructions, don’t you agree?

Well, I have exciting news. All this is now possible!

After several months of development, I’m proud to announce and bring to you…

Finally! The fastest and easiest way ever for subscribers to whitelist you

WhitelistNow is the new way for subscribers to add you to their Address Book and Contacts. Watch this short 1-minute video and see for yourself how quick and easy it is for them to whitelist you…

Did you see how the Whitelist Wizard makes it so simple for subscribers? All they have to do is:

1. Select their email service…
2. Sign in to their email account…
3. Click ‘Save & Log out”.

And that’s all there is to it – you’re whitelisted. Plus it’s all done without leaving your web site. Now your email will be delivered to their inbox and not the junk folder. Happy days!

I think you’ll agree, it doesn’t get easier than this. There’s no need to open a new browser window to log in to their email service, or fire up their email program. They don’t even need to type in your email address, which not only saves time for people but also means they won’t make any spelling mistakes.

Before you check out the other features, there are a couple I want to quickly tell you about right now…

“How to whitelist us” videos:

The Whitelist Wizard currently offers the top 3 most popular email service providers – Yahoo! Mail, WIndows Live Hotmail and Gmail. More email providers will be added soon.

If subscribers don’t use any of these then they can watch short video tutorials for other email services and email clients and see exactly how to whitelist you. Text instructions are also available for those who like to read.

Use a custom video message:

You can upload your own video to appear in the WhitelistNow widget. This is another powerful feature that helps to increase the number of people who whitelist you. For example, you can use a personal message to ask people to add you to their Address Book or Contacts. Want even more people to whitelist you? Then offer a free gift incentive and tell them about it in your video.

Another way to use the custom video feature is to get people to check their inbox for your confirmation email. And again, if you want even more people to confirm their email then offer a free gift incentive and tell them about it in your video.

With a video, where people can see and hear you, you can convey the importance of whitelisting you, and the urgency of checking their inbox and confirming their email, far better than just using boring text and screenshots alone.

Oh, one other thing I think you’ll like…

Earn passive income:

How would you like to earn some passive monthly recurring income from using WhitelistNow?

The “Add this to your site” and “Powered by WhitelistNow” links at the bottom of the widget can be your WhitelistNow affiliate link. You earn 50% recurring commission via ClickBank on all sales. Just a handful of sales and your subscription is covered, making WhitelistNow free for you to use. And since this is an essential tool that marketers will use month after month, year after year, you can expect to receive monthly commission cheques for a long time.

OK, one final thing I’d like to say before I wrap this up…

Take a closer look at WhitelistNow but don’t expect it to be bloated with a ton of features and bells and whistles.

You see, my philosophy is to keep things simple. I created WhitelistNow to be as simple as possible to use – for you and your subscribers. You can be up and running and have it working on your web site in less than 10 minutes after you sign up.

Right from the word “go”, I wanted it to do one thing and to do it well – to get you into your subscribers’ Address Book and Contacts. The goal is to get more of your email delivered to the inbox and not sent to the junk folder by mistake. As a result, you enjoy better results from list building and email marketing.

WhitelistNow makes it fast and easy for subscribers to whitelist you so they receive what they signed up for. And it helps you deliver more of your offers and messages to them so you can grow your business faster and make more money from email marketing. What more could you ask for?

So if you want a bigger mailing list… if you want more email delivered, opened and read… if you want to make more money from list building and email marketing… then sign up and add WhitelistNow to your web site today.

Thanks for reading and welcome to the new evolution in whitelisting!