I have a confession to make: I am an e-mail discussion group junkie. I once posted a message to one of my favorite discussion groups, and it obviously resonated with another member. Or so I thought when I opened the e-mail from that individual. The first sentence was a "great post" sort of message. The rest of the e-mail was a sales pitch.

So much for getting to know me a little better, building a relationship, etcetera and so forth.

Needless to say, I was more than slightly annoyed by this individual's in-your-face approach to doing business.

Imagine if the same sort of thing happened in the offline world. You're at a business networking meeting, and a discussion is going on. After you've contributed your bit o' wit and wisdom, someone you've never met comes over to you, compliments you on what you just said, then launches into a sales pitch for his/her product. You'd be a little irritated, wouldn't you?

Okay, now that I've shared my displeasure with the aforementioned approach, what do I recommend? Two things:

1. Recognize that e-mail discussion group members are quite interested in building their businesses. We're all trying to sell something online.

2. If you like what people say in the group, e-mail them and let them know. But let a relationship develop before you go into sales pitch mode. If you want to arouse their interest in what you're trying to sell, let your e-mail message's signature do that.

About the Author:

Martha Retallick first started designing websites back in 1995, when the Internet was still a nifty novelty. She's still designing, and can be found online at: http://www.lrpdesigns.com/