Getting Whitelisted on AOL
I was reading a thread in a forum recently where a software vendor was wanting to know how to best educate his AOL customers about how to whitelist his email address so as to allow his emails to get through to them. One of the suggestions was:
- Get another email account / provider somewhere
- Subscribe to the vendor’s list using that email address
While many folks might regard the above suggestion as silly, it really isn’t. First off, what a lot of people on AOL don’t realize is that they *CAN* actually have other email accounts AND mailboxes with other hosts!
Secondly, somebody needs to explain to AOL users that when they go through the trouble of getting a domain name for their business, they also should set up an email account on that domain and promote that (non-AOL) addy rather than their AOL email addy. Most domain name registrars offer an inexpensive option to get a small number of email boxes for a very low monthly or annual fee. These mailboxes are typically accessed through a webmail portal offered by the registrar, like SquirrelMail or Hoarde.
But for general email purposes, anybody can easily sign up for a freebie account with GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail, or any of the multitudes of others, and then just open an IE window and access that mail through the service’s normal portal or dedicated Webmail portal if one is available.
Why is this a Good Idea?
Because one day, these users going to want to dump AOL (or MSN, or Cox, or QWest, or Comcast, or … whatever) and switch to another ISP. Maybe it’s out of choice, and maybe it’s because they’re moving and they cannot get service from the same ISP in their new location.Â
And when that day comes, they’re going to become very upset at the fact that they’ve been using their ISP’s email addy for the past five years and it’s on all of their business cards and promotional materials and advertisements and EVERYTHING they’ve EVER used to induce people to contact them. And they’re suddenly going to realize that in switching ISPs, that channel is going to go D-E-A-D … INSTANTLY.
In fact, I ran into somebody just the other day who recently moved from the East Coast, where they had Comcast, to a new home in Phoenix, AZ, that has cable supplied by Cox — Comcast is not available here. They were devastated because they had to give up their five-year-old xyz@comcast.net email addresses! Even though this guy has had a custom domain name for his business for several years, he never bothered to set up an email account under that domain. He’s been promoting his business with the Comcast.net email addy all along.Â
Or, rather, he’s been promoting Comcast’s business, by using their email address rather than his own. If he only knew!
Anyway, these people don’t realize that their ISP’s account is simply one of many different possibilities that they have at their disposal. They think that because that’s the account they use to “login” to their internet portal (ie., AOL), then that’s the only one they can use. Of course, their ISP doesn’t want them to think otherwise, so they never discuss it, and even discourage it with their various anti-spam policies and blacklists.
So this suggestion may be the very best solution to offer AOL subscribers who are having difficulty getting your emails! While they might not recognize it at first, you’ll be doing them quite a wonderful service, and opening their eyes to a whole ‘nuther world.
In fact, you might want to go the extra step and offer to give them an email address on YOUR domain … for FREE! Just ask them to use it on all of their correspondence and promotional materials.
Tuesday 19 Dec 2006 | ToolWiz | Email Tips + Tricks, General, Tools