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Recent research (a study conducted by DDM/bbgetaways.com) shows that about 67% of innkeepers now use email as a way to contact potential guests. However, most innkeepers have discovered that along with this effective and necessary tool of communication comes an unwanted flow of email messages that waste time and system resources. ABC News recently reported that about 34% of email that U.S. workers receive during the day are worthless!
Because we are hearing increasing complaints from our innkeepers about what an annoyance these unsolicited "spam" messages are and we ourselves were inundated with daily unwanted email (until we followed the guidelines set in this article), we thought an article summarizing a few techniques on how to block unwanted email was in order.
How Do You Feel About Spam?
Please go to ibbp.com/vote.html to cast your vote on how much email you get from online travel directories each week and how you feel about it. We will report back on the results!
First of all, let's define this type of email. For all practical purposes, any unsolicited email sent to multiple recipients is considered "junk" or "spam" email. However, a more precise definition for spamming is: "... sending unsolicited commercial email using `broadcast' methods to multiple recipient addresses across the Internet regardless of the recipients' categorical interests." The key words are "unsolicited" and "regardless of the recipients' categorical interests." Three categories of junk email are currently being sent to potential customers.
General Broadcast Email. This type of email is broadcast to thousands or millions of email addresses contained in a computerized mail list. This email usually contains adult-oriented messages, virus messages, or huge volumes of text that can crash a computer if accidentally opened. This type of email is usually obvious: just scan the content header, and you know this is trash. These messages are not addressed to your email name: in most cases their FROM and TO boxes are blank or contain a fictitious return email address.
Commercial Broadcast Email. This type of email is also broadcast to numerous email addresses, but usually the sender has purchased the addresses from a professional company offering them targeted leads (a familiar example: online directories sending to anyone having anything to do with the travel industry). This email usually offers something of little or no interest to you. However, the content or offer is often targeted at your business or personal needs. The FROM and TO boxes are filled with either the same email addresses or two different ones, none of which is yours and none of which is usually valid. Sometimes, they address a message to your correct email name; to get your email they "harvest" it by using various tools and sources.
Targeted Email. This type of email is unsolicited as well, but usually the company is offering a service targeted specifically to your business. These senders usually identify themselves by including a valid email address, name, name of the company, and often a physical address. They put your address in the message TO box and their offer is usually very targeted to your needs. Most messages are still sent by a "broadcast" method but to a very limited number of recipients.
Just about all of types of junk mail carry a note stating "This message was sent in compliance with bill s.1618 Title III passed by 105th Congress ..." or something similar so that it sounds officially acceptable. Do a little homework and you will find out that this bill was never enacted into law.
Note: I don't want to sound hypocritical, as in the past we at IBBP occasionally sent messages defined in the third category. In the old days this worked very well for us and for innkeepers who learned about our service from the email. However, we rarely use this marketing method today for the reasons this article is about. Rather, we have an opt-in list where innkeepers can ask to be mailed more information about our services (see http:// ibbp.com/link.html) .
Take Control over Spam
OK, now that you know what it is, how can you stop it? Of course, you will not be able to completely get rid of all junk email--those who send it continuously innovate and create new approaches! You can do a few things, however, to initiate some degree of control.
First: Report the problem to your service provider. Most Internet providers rely on two main strategies to thwart unsolicited email: they subscribe to the list of known spammers and block email from those domains, and they use filters to seek for common patterns in junk email messages and delete those. Ask your service provider what they are doing to stop spam.
Second: Use filters available in your own email software. You can use these filters to block email that manages to outsmart your Internet service provider's barriers. At IBBP, we use Microsoft Outlook 2000 and really like the program. It may not be super easy or user-friendly software for some people, and a lot of functions are really not needed, but a portion of the program with its RULES WIZARD and ORGANIZE functions are relatively easy to set up and use. Eventually it will help you to filter out hundreds or thousands unwanted messages.
In Outlook 2000 you can use Rules Wizard to set up specific rules that apply to arriving/ outgoing messages. For example, you can easily set up your mail box to automatically delete messages that are not addressed to your email name.
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Here are simple instructions for Outook running on a PC (Use Outlook Help if you need more information):
1. Go to Menu - Tools - Rules Wizard.
2. Choose New when the Rules Wizard window is open.
3. Highlight "Check messages when they arrive."
4. Click on Next.
5. Check boxes for "Where my name is not in the TO box" and "Suspected to be junk email or from Junk Sender."
[You will notice that you need to create a Junk Sender list. This is easy to do--just follow the screen instructions. Outlook 2000 decides which mail is "Suspected to be junk" by running a comparison to its filter list located in the file called filters.txt]
6. Click Next.
7. Check the box for either "Delete it" or "Move it to the specified folder."
[You can create or choose a specified folder and label it Suspected Junk for later quick deletion].
That's it. Now, you can effectively set up barriers for the first and second categories of the offenders who have their TO box addressed to the fictitious email name or to no one at all and it will be deleted before you even bother to read it. This program has many more rules that you can define to avoid addition junk messages. If you follow the instructions above, you will know how to set up more rules--that can actually be fun!
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Here are some additional sources that you may find useful for dealing with junk email.
A Guide To Dealing With Unwanted E-mail:
http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/nospam.html
General list of resources:
http://www.junkmail.org
An article: How to Get Rid of Junk Mail, Spam, and Telemarketers:
http://www.ecofuture.org/jmemail.html
Articles, list of resources:
http://spam.abuse.net/spam/
Email filtering techniques, list of recourses:
http://home.cet.com/support/howto/junkmail.htm
How e-marketers harvest email:
http://www.private.org.il/harvest.html
How to filter spam with Eudora 3.0:
http://www.cs.nwu.edu/~beim/eudora/eudora-3-0-spam-filter.html
How to block spam if you have an account with hotmail:
see the website www.hotmail.com for details
This and previous articles by Leeza Morris and Yvonne Tornatta are posted online at ibbp.com/articles.html
Leeza Morris holds an MBA in finance and marketing from University of Portland, Oregon, and is involved in international marketing, bed and breakfast online promotion, and research on business and marketing valuation models. Since 1998 she is co-owner and co- operator of the award-winning travel guide, founded by Yvonne Tornatta in 1995, International Bed and Breakfast Pages (ibbp.com).
For more information on International Bed and Breakfast Pages, contact Leeza Morris at 4451 FM 2181 Suite 100 #149, Corinth, TX 76210; tel. (940) 497-2156; fax. (940) 497- 4680, email: leezamorris@ibbp.com. Visit the sites at https://ibbp.com and http://www.BnB4sale.com.
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