Opt-In Email Lists

Pros vs. Direct Mail
- Immediate Timeline (Our big group cancelled for this weekend!)
- Cheaper to "print"
- Cheaper to "deliver"
- Easy to track
- Actionable Information
Creating an initial email database
- Ask your visitors
  - Must offer added value
- Online contests
Mailing Hints for Success
- Create a template
- Relevant Content with Value
- Frequency
  - Twice per month is the maximum number of contacts recommended for most audiences. One relevant email is better than fifty mediocre emails.
- Anti-Spam regulations
- How to avoid getting filtered
  - Outook rules
  - Content Checker
  - mailto: links with 'Remove' in the subject of the link This will almost always get your message filtered.
  - Don't say "we honor all removal requests" or things of that nature. Filters look at this as a big "red flag.
  - Don't send from your business computer
Some easy-to-use online resources
- ConstantContact.com
- Campaigner.com
Isn’t this SPAM?
- The word "Spam" as applied to Email means Unsolicited Bulk Email ("UBE") (1)
  - Unsolicited means that the Recipient has not granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent.
  - Bulk means that the message is sent as part of a larger collection of messages, all having substantively identical content.
- Opt-In Email
  - Opt-in email is a Web marketing term for email that recipients have previously requested by signing up at a Web site. Those who sign up have thus "opted in."