YNOT EUROPE – If you’re not engaged in email marketing, then you’re missing out on one of the more effective means for getting your message straight to consumers. If you operate an adult business, however, starting an email marketing campaign isn’t always as easy as it sounds. That’s because many of the best email marketing tools today are “hosted” services, and most of them have rules that prohibit adult-related marketing.

So what’s the solution? If you have access to your own server, one solution is to license and install your own software. For example, if you want to run your own email marketing software, you could start by looking at phpList. The good news is it’s full of features, and the better news is it’s free of charge and open-source.

Once installed, phpList gives you a web interface for running and monitoring your own email marketing campaigns. It’s ideal for newsletters or making the occasional announcement to customers. It’s also smart software, designed to reduce the chance that any one subscriber will get hit more than once with the same email due to errors or multiple subscriptions. It can handle very large lists or small lists, and it can help you track clicks to gauge the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts.

If you’re new to email marketing, there are three things you need to keep in mind:

Always get permission. If you plan to send email with any kind of commercial message, it’s important that you have the permission from the people you contact. Sure, you may get a ton of spam yourself, but sending unsolicited commercial email may be against the law — especially if the email contains any adult content. A good way to get yourself in trouble is to buy an email contact list from a third party. The people on most purchased lists didn’t ask for your newsletter or special offers, and many of them are bound to be less than thrilled when you add your products or services to the daily bombardment.

How do you get permission? When you collect email addresses, make sure to explain clearly what you plan to send, and how often. And, don’t “activate” an email address until the subscriber has received a confirmation email from your email software and confirmed his or her interest. This is a process called double opt-in, and it ensures that someone isn’t just signing up all his or her enemies for your porno newsletter.

Refine your campaigns. You will want to limit the number of emails you send to your entire list, so it’s a good idea to get your campaigns right before you blast everyone on a large list. First, always check your emails for errors before you send them. If your software has the ability to send “test” emails, take advantage of that feature every time as a first step! Sometimes your email looks great when you compose it, but it gets mangled when sent. This is mostly a problem when you send HTML emails and something goes wacky in the code. Check your emails for spelling or grammatical errors.

Second, you can refine your campaigns by utilizing small, targeted test mailings. Let’s say you want to send an email advertising the launch of your newest website, and you have a list with a total of 10,000 subscribers. Try generating several different versions of your advertisement with several different sets of subjects, titles, keywords and rhetorical approaches. Send each version to a smaller subset of your list, like one version to 500 subscribers and a second version to a different 500 subscribers, etc. By comparing the results, you can determine which approach got the best response and use that one for mailing the entire list.

Keep your message simple. When designing your ads, choosing subjects for the email, etc., always think of how the finished product will look from the consumer’s end. When the consumer gets the email, will it make sense? Will he or she understand what you’re offering? If the recipient is interested in your offer, is it obvious what he or she needs to do to take action and accept? If your message is confusing or requires too much mental energy to act upon, you’ll lose your audience lightning fast.

Dennis Taylor writes about a variety of sales, marketing and general business topics.