Hi, we have a successful internet business with 16,000 email addresses. We are opening up a new internet site and would like to 'spam' the list that we have. Is there a way to do this without getting our VPS and ip address into 'trouble'?? What is the best way to go about doing this? thank you!
Oh gees...two spammer want-to-bees in six hours!!!! Where are you spammers comming from!!! Amit you got some SPAM business!!!
I would guess that close to half the addresses are going to be bad if they are that old. You will get definitely have issues if you a high percentage of your addresses bounce, especially to some of the bigger domains (yahoo.com, etc.) If they get too many bad emails from the same IP, that IP will be marked as bulk and every email you send to yahoo will go to the bulk folder... If you've never sent a mailing to this customer list, you have a tough road ahead. You should also look into getting on aol's whitelist. Good luck.
Will the ip address that is hosting the website get in 'trouble' or will the ip address of the server that sends the mass email get into 'trouble'? Meaning, if we send the mass email from a different server/host will we be able to protect out VPS? Our main consideration right now is protecting the two ip addresses of our VPS. We have a quite a few sites on it right now and we don't want to take any chance that we might get blacklisted.
If you have not been emailing your customers on a regular basis, it is going to be hard for you to all of a sudden email them. Most will have long forgot they bought from you, etc and will scream spam! Most others will just delete. Now, if you email them, do not sell them something on the first email. Just explain why they are getting the email, who you are, etc. And for heaven's sake, have an opt-out email address or url so those who do not want more email from you can opt=out never to receive stuff from you. I would email x-amount per day for say 30 days or so.
Thanks IowaDawg. However, we weren't really planning on letting the people on the list know that the two sites are connected in any way. I'm kinda surprised that this issue hasn't been addressed before. Aren't there businesses out there with email lists that have more than one business that 'share' email addresses between the two businesses?
When one business has an email function, they clearly state that emails may be sent from the other company. It has to be a clear statement when it comes to using a customer's email address. If you did not have such a statement that emails will be shared, etc...then you could be open to spam charges.
I wouldn't consider it spam then. If you have done business with these people in the past, then all you're doing is informing them that you have a new web site available. 16,000 is a lot though, so you might want to spread out when you send the emails.
That's not as bad as the lists that are being sold on DP with 450,000 e-mail addresses of college students.
You should give them all an option to remain a subscriber like "reply with "unsubscribe" in the subject line if you prefer not to receive emails from us". Wait two weeks and then hit it.
In my opinion if these have been customers you should be fine. Just make sure to state that you are from the other business so they don't get confused and make sure they can unsubscribe easily.
Say anything nice in a thread, please do not say anything. Because if you had actually read and comprehended the OP, you would have found out, like everyone else, that this is a company with their own customer list. They are not selling this list, they want ideas on how to use this list.
Thanks IowaDawg. I didn't appreciate being called a psycho, but didn't want to start up with nvidura in this thread. Thank you all for your replies and suggestions.
Here's an idea: send an email to the contacts from your existing business. In it, mention the other business as a partner, and give some incentive to check it out completely legal