Email marketing has and will remain a popular way to market; however, it’s probably one of the most widely misused. There are different classes of issues at hand, etiquette and legal being the two most prominent.

People generally have poor etiquette when it comes to email marketing. Typically the offenses are small, but at times they are beyond marginal.

Recently, I received an email from someone who had obtained my email address through an associate. First of all I think it is bad practice to provide anther’s email address. A better practice would have been to provide me with the email address of the person seeking to contact me, so that I could make the decision whether to provide my email address. Secondly, they placed my and many other email addresses in the “To” box. This wouldn’t be an issue except that it actually exposed my email to everyone on the email. A better approach would have been to send the email to them self and BCC everyone on the email.

In any event with email seemingly growing at an outstanding rate as a result of all the daily deals, it’s time that people spent some more time understanding email best practices.

Because unless you’ve done your research buying any other gTLD(.info, .org, .net) or ccTLD(.co.uk, .ca) would be gambling not investing. Anyone looking to start a domain portfolio should only be buying .com. This is a bold, but true statement. Think about it, when was the last time you went to a .info or .net for that matter? And almost every American, unless born to another country, would not even bother to go to a ccTLD. Bottom line it goes back to, buy what you know.

The most common objection, “there are no good .com’s left”. I call BS. There’s plenty you’re just not looking in the right places. Sure, their may not be a lot of valuable new registration domains worth purchasing, but there is a ton of value in the aftermarket.

Recently I’ve been back into the domaining scene, spending my nights picking up gems such as toastedsub.com (new reg). I started to think, its been almost 7 years on the web for me. 7 years ago I started my first mini venture, cellparadise.com selling accessories online, which I parlayed into furnitureparadise.com. However, it wasn’t until my 3 year stint at the largest domain registrar, GoDaddy that I realized the true value of domains. I like many others made all the usual mistakes. Buying based on emotion or lack of research. Since then I take my time calculating purchases. Whether its a $7 or $1800 investment it all ads up and the most important thing to keep in mind is that it’s an investment. An investors primary goal is to maximize their return. Same with domains, forget emotion, forget what you think, it’s all about fact.

Each purchase you make should be based on research. Going back to an old advisement I used to make, buy what you know. This basically means that if you’re an expert in insurance then you can make educated decisions on insurance domains. That said, I own domains relating to real estate, travel, insurance, and many other verticals. The one common denominator in those purchases is that I always made sure to “consult” an adviser in those fields. Consulting could have consisted of a conversation over a cold beer or an email with specific questions. These individuals provided me with invaluable information that I could never have gotten just from doing internet research.

Where am I going with this? Well, I guess the summation of my point is that be precise about what you buy, make a budget, and consult those that are in the know. These are the simplest of policies you should maintain over your domain buying, but to me are the most important. Furthermore, you may too be a “smart domainer.”