So I'm working on organizing my email again. I tend to do this every 6 months or so. It seems my workflow keeps changing, but one thing that doesn't.. I get a lot of email!!!

I wanted to share with you a tip that many people don't know exists. It's a tool on Traffic Exchange List that lets you create filters easily, specifically designed for Gmail. This makes it super easy to create a filter that labels incoming email as Traffic Exchange, so you can keep it all organized. You can even get fancy and create filters based on the rankings.

http://www.trafficexchangelist.com/tools/index.php

Personally I started at 1, and ended at 500, so I'd get all the exchanges in filters. I'm going to label them as "Traffic Exchange". I used to do it "Top 10" "Top 100" etc, but I never used it much. The tool will even chunk the text into groups if there are more than GMails max filter length ;-)

I'm playing with MailChimp's RSS to Email function, and I'd like to get a few of you to subscribe to it and help give me feedback. You can all subscribe to it if you want to, but once there are say 20 or so it should be good to go.

I'd also prefer if you are a Social Media type to try it out. There are some social integrations with it (Twitter, Facebook). So finding out how you like the integration of that would be cool too.

To subscribe just go here and do the normal nonsense.

The following is a true story, it actually happened, and might have even happened to you. It's a terrible idea business wise.

A new site was launched, and a company decided to use their member details from another website they run to create accounts on this new site. Without asking if the person wanted to sign up.

On top of that, they seemed to have moved the downline with them. So the people I referred to site A, are now under me in site B. Problem is, I don't know what site B is.

But now I'm receiving emails from this new site, that aren't CAN SPAM compliant. Have no contact info, and no unsubscribe link. They claim I'm getting the emails because I'm a member...  Without any choice.

This is a bad idea for multiple reasons:

1. It creates mistrust with your members. I didn't ask to be signed up, but I was. What else will happen that I don't want to happen with my personal info?
2. It creates spam complains. How many of you report something as spam when you don't know what it is?
3. It doesn't follow email laws requiring unsubscribe information and contact details.

I kept the name out because years from now, it doesn't matter who did it today, it just matters that you should never do this. I'm a bit shocked about it too because I thought I was dealing with a reputable company.

Update: If you follow the thread linked to above, you'll see this was done in error from good intentions. It was meant as a way to "hold" referrals from one program to another. In that case, it was a good intention with a hickup. However the original problem still gets done from time to time, and you should never do that ;-)

Everyone tells you the money is in the list, so more people try to get people to subscribe to the list. So more people are on more lists. So everyone gets more mail.

How do you get your mail noticed?

I've noticed some people say that building a list isn't the way to be doing it, because they believe with all this email overload it's a waste as they won't be reading your emails anyways.

While I agree that it takes creativity to get people to read your emails, I disagree that building a list is a waste. Really what you want to be doing is building a list of people, not email addresses.

Yes, you have their email address, but you should be building relationships with those people not just sending out emails to them. That's why you should have the return address be your inbox.

So many people put a bouncing address as the return email, which not only decreases your deliverability, but it makes customers angry when they can't easily contact you.

If you have real relationships with the people on your list, then it doesn't matter how many emails they get - they'll read yours. They'll see it's from you, and read it. You can play all these games with subject lines, but that FROM line is huge. If it's from someone you care about, you read it. If it's not, that's when interesting subject lines really matter.

This is one reason why you should find a balance in the number of emails you send. It's why I setup my auto responder to send the auto emails on Sundays. I don't post to my blog on Sundays, so I know you won't get too many emails from me. When you mail out too much, then people start to ignore your emails!

So there you have it, a few tips to improve your responses with your list:

• Send from a REAL email address, and reply when people email it! (I do, though I will admit I'm hugely slow)
• Build relationships with the people that are on your list (twitter, conferences, forums, emails)
• Don't send out too many, so you don't get ignored!

I created a new survey for you guys, if you complete it I'd very much appreciate it. I got no bribes for this one though, so sorry if you were expecting a freebie =P

I'm just interested in what people think about the current auto-responders that are available. People have joked about me creating one, but I don't know if it'd be worth it or not. There are already a ton out there, so why create another?

So your feedback will help me figure out a few questions of my own. Thanks!

People always talk about building a list, and how it works great and you should do it. But how many tell you anything more than that? I don't know, but I'm about to tell you more.

One of the things promoted to every person who subscribed to my blog is The Pizza Plan. It's an ebook by Jon Olson talking about how he went from flipping pizzas to working online. It's straight forward, simple, and free. So if you don't have a copy, go get one!

So the question is, how do I profit from giving away a free ebook? It's simple, everyone can download it free but you have to pay if you want a copy of the ebook with your referral links in it. Makes it really easy to build downlines in the programs mentioned because people are learning about them in one spot.

Now how many people do you think would actually pay for that? Many, actually. I've earned $1463 so far from giving away this free ebook. Now half of that was the initial launch, because nobody on my list had heard about it previously. The other half is from being in my auto responder.

I'll be honest, that isn't enough income to quit your day job. But it is enough to pay for your hosting and auto-responder. And on top of that direct income, I've indirectly made commissions from sales through the services mentioned in the ebook.

For instance Traffic Wave is mentioned in the ebook. People who don't have an auto-responder and are learning about them are very likely to click the link, learn about it, and sign up. Now I don't have any way to know how many signed up to it from The Pizza Plan, but that doesn't matter so much.

What matters is when you take The Pizza Plan, and the other products and services I really believe in and promote, it all combines into a nice income. And it's all possible because I use an auto-responder. If I promoted The Pizza Plan directly, I wouldn't be able to then promote any other service to you later. Having a list lets me tell you about them until you unsubscribe (which my goal is never =P)

So do me a favor now and go get a copy of The Pizza Plan, then buy the resell rights, and promote it to your list. Even if you haven't started getting subscribers it's a great thing to have in your auto-responder series because 1) it's straight to the point 2) Jon updates the ebook so it stays current.

After contemplating the whole Email Overload post, I realized I wasn't helping my blog subscribers with that. The way my auto responder works you were getting an email every 3 days when you first subscribed.

I decided to cool it down, and make it once a week. And I decided to make it go out on Sundays because that's when I usually take the day off and don't post. So if I don't post to the blog, you aren't already getting an email from me that day.

It's actually a cool new feature with Aweber, so we'll see how it goes. Basically every Sunday you'll get an email from me mentioning a product or service I recommend. You don't have to sign up to them all obviously, but I like to put them in the AR series so I don't have people asking every blog post "What's TEtoolbox?" or "What's StartXchange", etc.

I'll also be promoting other people's services that I think are worthy to join. For instance, other traffic exchanges. I don't want to get into the clutter of email, but I do see value in 1) pointing out the good ones 2) getting referrals/commissions. Will be interesting to see how this new pick the day/time of the AR feature works!

There are different opinions on the whole email topic. Should you mail out daily, weekly, etc. Is there too much email, or not enough. One thing's for sure: Activity happens when those emails go out.

I've often wondered though, how do you guys manage the emails you get? For the exchanges that I'm using I know my answer is: I don't read them.

But it's clear that when I send out an email to StartXchange members, people start surfing and activity starts up again. So clearly people are out there reading the emails. So this one's to you: How do you manage it all?

And a follow up question would be, do you need reminders to surf? Are you just waiting for promos? If there is something important for you to know (big changes, etc) is email the best way to let you know? I'm interested in your feedback!

People love getting free stuff, so much so they'll enter their name & email address into your auto-responder to get them. This tactic is used by many marketers because it works so well!

The part most people struggle with is what to give away. Well if you are advertising in traffic exchanges, giving away TE related reports is a good idea.

That's where TE Reports comes in. John Guanzon & Brett Phillips launched it today. It's sort of like a downline builder for reports. There are many in there that I promote to you guys in my own auto-responder.

They set it up simple too, you can literrally enter your auto-responder code into their splash page maker and offer the reports to people to subscribe to your list. Then when they do, they have an easy page to download all the reports!

Of course there will be an offer when you first join, it's for squeeze pages that go with each of the reports. They have a full package deal here. So go check it out!

The biggest fear people have about building a list is not the creating of the list, but the writing of the emails to the list. Most people don't think they are good enough or know enough to write to their list.

But here's the deal, it's easier than you think. All you have to do is be yourself. Don't look at it as having to be some guru to write emails. You write emails all the time already, this is the same thing!

The easiest way to do it is to think about how you would reply to someone if they sent you an email and asked you a question. If you are selling a service, pretend they emailed you asking for more information about that service.

Remember they will be opting in to get the information, so they already want it, all you have to do is tell them.

Start out small if you have to, just one email that you'd reply with. Then add more to the series as if the person hasn't decided if they were sure they want to join your program. Give them a few different reasons than the first email. Point out the big benefits again, etc.

You can even sign the emails and ask the person to reply. Their questions will help you come up with more content to write in continuing your follow up emails.

The great thing is, if you really be yourself with these emails, your list will be loyal to you. You don't have to worry about what you write because they've already decided they like what you have to write.