When I first started marketing on-line, I quickly created a marketing email nightmare. I didn't know not to use my regular email account when I went out placing ads at the various sites on-line. Oh Boy do I wish someone had mentioned that to me! Imagine my horror when I checked my mail and there were hundreds of confirmations from the owners of the ad sites I posted to. Trying to sort through them finding any that might be a customer asking for help, etc. was again nothing short of a nightmare.

It didn't take me long to figure out I would need to focus some time on organizing how I managed the email I received from my advertising. Thankfully with just a little organization. And a few months of undoing the disaster I had created. Today it is, no longer a problem, but instead a well oiled machine, that is controlled by me and not the other way around.

I am sure many make the same mistake as they begin their marketing adventure. But hopefully this article will help a few of you to not have to endure the nightmare this mistake can cause.

First off you will want to use good email accounts for your posting. Don't compromise your advertising just to avoid the confirmations. Not using quality email will only get you banned from the sites and then your ads won't be seen. Making it just a waste of time at that point. Many of the free email accounts out there are not a wise choice for using with your advertising. They can be used if handled properly, but I do not recommend them for the beginner.

Set up your email accounts according to what types of advertising you are doing. Basically you will need one or two email accounts for free ads sites such as classifieds and FFA's. One account for your safelist ad posting and one contact account for the safelists. Because safelist admins can and do send quite a bit of mail to these accounts, so this can still create clutter in the mailbox of your main contact email address.

I personally use POP email accounts created from my hosting account where my domain is hosted. You can organize this to suit what is easiest for you such as you might create a email account named ads@your-domain-name.com for posting to classified and ffa sites. Then safelists@your-domain-name.com and for the safelist contact email slcontact@your-domain-name.com

The main benefit of using POP accounts is that when needed, you can put them on mailbox cleaners. You can't do this with forwarding type email addresses. Now I am from the "old school" as many call it and I don't dump my mail unless absolutely necessary, such as being gone for the day or my Internet service is down, etc. Not to mention that many of the sites, you advertise on, require that you confirm your posting, so you will want to be able to view your mail to find those that you need to click on.

In addition to the accounts mentioned above, you will need to pull all this together with quality email software that will handle multiple email accounts and download mail automatically. There are many to choose from, but the easiest I have found to use are Outlook Express and Mozilla Thunderbird. Both can be obtained free or in most cases is already on your computer if you use Window's. Simply set up all your accounts you have created and set the program to auto-download every 15-30 minutes.

There can be even further organization by creating folders or mailboxes as some software calls them, then using filters to filter mail into various folders of your email software. Giving you even more ability to know what mail is coming from where so you know how you need to handle it. Such as if it is safelist mail you will want to browse at the very least the headlines. You will find many quality services, money makers and other goodies from safelist posters. If it is FFA and Classified mail then you will want to find and click on any confirmation links to optimize your ad being seen. Then again check the offers, many will be great. For mail from the safelist admins, you will need to watch for important notices, such as list changes, and also view the solo ads and so on.

One last piece of advise for managing your marketing email accounts is not to over create accounts. This will only cause chaos in trying to stay organized. You can only post so many times to a site any way and creating multiple accounts so you can post more, is not only bad Internet ethics it is again a waste of your valuable time. 9 out of 10 sites offering free advertising will track you by your IP address and not the email you use any way. There may be reason to have a few posting accounts pertaining to your organization of this, such as what ad you are posting or site you are posting to, ad tracking, etc. But just keep it to a limit, so that your mail doesn't get out of control.

Sincerely, Debbie Ducker