Mass Emails to Product Distributors Should NOT Be Obvious!
by Chris Malta
Earlier today, I was talking with one of the more than 500 Wholesale
Distributors we list in our Drop Ship Source Directory. The owner
of this Wholesale Distribution company had some important feedback
for me.
Our Directory provides Internet Retailers like yourself with
personally verified, legitimate holesale Distributors who will
send single products directly to your customers, from their warehouses,
for you. This eliminates the need for you to buy Wholesale products
up front, and stock and ship them yourself.
We here at Worldwide Brands know ALL the Distributors we list,
personally. We are in contact with them constantly. We talk back
and forth, using phone and email, and give each other feedback
on issues we think are important. This helps us to continue to
provide you with the best information on Wholesale Drop Shippers
available.
So, I was talking with the owner of one of these companies today,
and he gave me some feedback.
In our Directory, there is detailed contact information for
each of the Wholesale Distributors we list. That information includes
the Email Address you should use to contact them about setting
up an account if you want to sell their products.
This Wholesaler forwarded me an email he had gotten today from
one of our new Directory members. At the top of the email, as
at the top of most emails, was this Distributor's email address,
in the "To:" field of the email.
Here's an example:
To: WholesaleAccounts@SomeWholesaler.com
From: InternetRetailer@MyECommerceStore.com
Sent: Today, 10:24 AM
Subject: Opening a Wholesale Account with your Company
Well, in this email's "To:" field was the email address of the
Distributor I was talking to. That's all as it should be; it was
an email from an Internet Retailer asking about setting up a Wholesale
Account with this Wholesale Distributor's company.
However, ALSO in the To field of this email were the email addresses
of something like two hundred other wholesale companies.
Now, it's obvious what the new Internet Retailer who sent this
email did. He patiently gathered email addresses from a couple
of hundred of the Drop Ship Wholesalers listed in our Directory,
and sent the same request for a Wholesale Account to all of them
at once, in a mass email.
There's nothing terribly wrong with doing that. It's not a good
idea, since you really should research what products you want
to sell first, and then contact only those companies that sell
those products. But, this Internet Retailer wanted to jump ahead
a bit and gather info on opening as many accounts as he could.
So what's the problem?
The problem is that he let the Wholesaler see that it was a
Mass Email.
Most people don't understand that it takes time and effort for
a Wholesale Distributor to set up a Wholesale Account for you.
If you're selling online, and you want to sell the products of
a particular Drop Ship Wholesaler, you go through their process
for setting up an Account, which is almost always free to you.
However, it's not free to the Wholesaler. They have to pay an
employee to process the account for you. Somebody has to sit their
in their office and fill out your information on their computer
system, so that the Wholesaler can open your Account.
That's part of their business, and they really don't mind the
time it takes. As far as they are concerned, they're getting a
new Internet Retailer to work with, and that's just great.
BUT! When it's obvious to the Wholesaler that you are writing
to hundreds of Wholesalers at once, it's also obvious to them
that the time they spend setting up your Account is probably wasted
time. If you're emailing hundreds of Wholesalers at once, that
means you are not focused on what you want to sell, you do not
really care which wholesalers you are getting Accounts with, and
you have not taken the time to become familiar with that Wholesaler's
web site, products, and Account Setup procedures.
There's a very good chance that most of the wholesalers who
see that list of hundreds of email addresses in the To field are
not going to bother responding to you!
In other words, you're shooting yourself in the foot before
you even get started with your online business.
If you MUST Mass Email a group of Wholesalers, for Goodness'
Sake, use the "BCC" field in your Email Program!
For those unfamiliar with it, BCC stands for "Blind Courtesy
Copy". That means that there will only be ONE Email Address in
the To field, and the rest of the addresses will be hidden from
the recipient.
If you don't have an Email Program that allows BCC, get one!
Microsoft's Outlook Express comes FREE with Microsoft Internet
Explorer, and it has this feature. If you have Outlook Express,
and you don't see the BCC field when you Create a New Email, look
in the Help files.
You'll find it. Same goes for other Email Programs. If you don't
see a way to send BCC's, check your Email Program's Help files.
Now, a little bit about how BCC works. When you send an email
to a lot of people using BCC, you put ONE Email Address in the
To field. Then you put all the other Email Addresses in the BCC
field. The Email will go out to the Email Address in the To field,
and all the other Email Addresses in the BCC filed at the same
time. However, everyone who gets that Email will only see the
one Email Address in the To field.
Okay, I know what you may be thinking at this point. What if
the Email Address you put in the To field isn't the Email Address
of the Wholesale Distributor who gets the Email?
That's obviously going to happen. When you send a Mass Email
to 200 people, and you put one of those people in the To field,
and 199 of them in the BCC field, that Email is only going to
look right to one of the Wholesalers! All the others are going
to be wondering why they got an Email that was sent to a different
distributor, right?
Well, chances are that the Wholesaler isn't even going to look
at the To field if there's only one name there. It's not an obvious
thing, and chances are no one will notice, or even care if they
do notice. If it's a slow day at some particular wholesale warehouse,
someone might notice, though.
So, there's something else you can do to 'mask' our Email.
Go into your Address Book, and set up a New Contact. Name the
New Contact something like "Preferred Wholesale Distributor".
In the New Contact's "Email Address" field, enter your own Email
Address.
Then, when you send your Mass Email, put "Preferred Wholesale
Distributor" in the To field, then put the Email Addresses of
all 200 Wholesalers in the BCC field.
That way, each Wholesaler will get an Email that's addressed
to "Preferred Wholesale Distributor", and they won't see any of
the other Addresses you sent to. Of course, you'll end up getting
a copy of the Email too, because you are "Preferred Wholesale
Distributor", but at least that's a good way to verify that it
went out properly, right?
Don't worry if this all sounds too technical. It's really not
hard, and a good look at your Email Program's Help Files will
fill in the blanks if you're not sure about how to do this.
Again, Mass Emailing distributors asking for accounts is not
a good idea. You really need to spend time figuring out what you
want to sell first, and then just email those distributors who
carry those products. But, you may have other reasons to Mass
Email people, and this approach works well for them as well.
If you absolutely must Mass Email distributors, this little
trick is worth learning, believe me. You don't want to alienate
your product suppliers before you even start!
Chris Malta
Founder/CEO
Worldwide Brands, Inc.
www.WorldwideBrands.com
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