A topic that comes up frequently on e-commerce forums is the etiquette and legality of email marketing to people who have never explicitly opted in. For example, suppose you launch a newsletter. Is it legitimate to send it to
- all your old clients?
- email addresses from business cards you got at a Chamber event?
- an opt-in list from a different division of your company?
The MailChimp guys discuss this and provide some suggestions – chief among which are
- do this with care, if at all – the best practice is 100% opt-in
- don’t think ‘email blast’ – think ‘relationship’
- lists are not like fine wine – they don’t get better with age – so reconfirm them if they’re old
- start with a request for permission, not a newsletter
- expect that 50-80% of the addresses in your list will not be interested
Just because they did business with you once doesn’t mean they want to receive your marketing material now.
Not surprisingly, Seth Godin has an opinion on this:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/07/permission-junk.html
Comment by cartguy — Tuesday, September 25, 2007 @ 7:37 am