I have an ebay business that Im transitioning over to a website. I have close to 100,000 customers in the past year and I want to send them an email saying that I have opened a website where they can buy my items now in a more convenient/better /cheaper way than ebay. First of all.. Is this allowed. They are my customers from the past year that purchased from me on ebay. second: how can I do this? I have the list in a excel file. thanks
First, it is not technically spam if you provide a way for them to opt-out from future emails. (if you continue to send emails after they request to be removed it is then spamming) Also you must include your physical address and the subject line must not be misleading in regards to the emails content. Secondly, as far as sending the communication goes, you could just use Outlook but you will need to break the list into very small junks since there is a limit to how many you can send at once. (not sure what that limit is) You could also purchase an email software program but it sounds like you just want to send a single update so it may not be worth the cost. There are some desktop as well as server based open source programs (just Google open source email software) but I can't say I have experience with those. With either of those, you need to check on the terms your ISP and/or hosting service provider have regarding sending large volumes of email or else they could shut down your internet connection or website for viollating those terms. Good luck!
thanks for the reply. for sure it will have an opt out option. I was thinking of maybe having a company do this for me, I give them the email and the 100k emails and they send it out for me. Is that ok or should i really try to do it myself? My isp is pretty strict about mass mailing. would anyone know a company that can do this?
Go get an aweber account and import your list into there... This is the best mailing list management tool around and if people don't want to be a part of your list aweber conforms to CAN SPAM and allows them to unsubscribe. It's $20 for an unlimited number of lists plus it will integrate with payment processors like Clickbank and Paydotcom and you can easily create opt in forms.
Many will consider it spam, so keep that in mind... And while keeping that in mind, talk to your host and see what they say about mass mailing. Many of them have guidelines against such things unless it is strictly opt-in (as compared to just opt-out) so on the off chance that they disallow such a thing it's best to know in advance and find an alternate method of mailing. Personally, I'd take it on a case by case basis. if I was a repeat customer of yours and got a mailing that would make it easier to deal with you, I'd love the mail...but if I just dealt with you once I may or may not flag it as spam (as I didn't ask for it). Though, if you are not going to get in trouble with your host, then by all means, send that mail out! Maybe with a link to opt-in through another mailer. That way, if this mass mailing gets you black listed, you'll have an opt-in list that you can use to keep yourself out of future blacklists. Regardless of how you do it though, offer an opt-out/unsubscribe option, and that'll make most happy.
Aweber doesn't just allow you to import 100k email addresses and go from there, it's not quite that simple.
Yes it could be considered spam and also possibly break the Terms and Conditions of eBay. I'm not a lawyer but this is my understanding of the situation (someone please correct me if I am wrong). - You usually need to prove you have "prior consent" before you email someone. - The reason you can email them when they do a transaction in eBay is because it is a “transactional or relationship†message - specifically faciliating a transaction. - I'm pretty sure eBay will be against you doing this and it probably breaks their terms and conditions. eBay has their own system to allow people to opt-in to your shops newsletter. http://pages.ebay.com/community/chatter/2005december/thesellingedge.html
Are you just wanting to mass email all of your past customers? If so then why don't you try here - http://www.freewarefiles.com/cat_5_198_Bulk-Email.html