hello in b2b marketing where i sell information to business people, can i list those who receive free newsletter as clients?
IMHO, a client is someone who has paid you (either in cash or other assets/value) for your business efforts. The way to look at this is would you be comfortable introducing such person to another businessperson while openly calling him/her a client? I don't think that you or the subscriber would really be comfortable with that approach. You can call them a subscriber, of course.
Hell no! If anyone dug deeper and found that you'd done that they would then question your business ethics and reliability over everthing else you've done or said. Example: I had a meeting with a sales guy from NZ Post's Localist directory a few years back. The guy tried to tell me that they'd partnered with Google on the site. Boy, that got my attention - Google investing in a New Zealand directory but not making a big deal of it?! This thing was going to go off. Alas no, turns out they were using the freely available custom search on their site (poorly implemented too). Killed the sales pitch although he tried to flog the dead horse. How could I believe anything else he said?