How can I send e-mails without being considered a spammer?

Hello everybody,

I started promoting busvertiso.com a few days ago. It is a personal project that offers a unique advertising opportunity to advertisers by using a custom bus to tour the US for a full year.

I have 39 spots for each of the 100 cities I am planning on visiting, and I wanted to contact around 50 business owners and webmasters in each city by e-mail, telling them about the project and asking them if they would be interested in busvertising.

I would manually send the e-mails and only do so after checking the website and personalize it to that specific webmaster.

Is this considered Spam? If so, how can I contact webmasters/business owners without being considered a spammer?

Thanks in advance for your time and help.

 

I honestly don't think you can unless the individual asks for the emails. At minimum, ensure that in every email you send out that people can unsubscribe from your mailing list.

 

Thanks PHPGator.

I will not do it if it is considered Spam. I do not think there is a ''minimum'' when it comes to spamming.

 

Anybody else? Please post if you have any experience with this or if you are informed about the dos and donts of sending e-mails.

Thanks in advance.

 

As long as you make the email related to them, make it professional and don't email them again if you don't get a reply, I think you should be on the safe side. Don't think their is anything wrong with that. Good luck with it!

 

Its considered spamming if you email people without their concent on receiving them to their inbox. Also it is illegal to send advertising related emails to unknown people who do not request them

 

As long as it's related to their business, kept short and non-spammy as well as personal you should be fine. Use a professional e-mail address like . Keep the messages individual, don't put all 50 e-mail addresses in the address line.

Finally, adding something along the lines of "PS. Apologies for the unsolicited e-mail, I apologize for any unwanted intrusion." works pretty well.

You're not going to get in trouble for sending the emails unless possibly one business reports to your host, but if you follow the above steps that's pretty unlikely.

 

The trick is to build a relationships. You do this by building and promoting opt-in pages targeted to certain niches, then provided content, info, and affiliate products that relate to that niche.

I have a 10 lesson course that you can access for free, you can get to that in my sig line below.

 

Yes, this is spam, but let me recommend a better way to get your message to them since it is so easy to delete an email and there is filters that take spam and throw it away. You should send out a direct mail campaign to them with a large postcard. You can go to: zairmail.com to set all of this up. It will be a little more costly than email marketing, but you won't have to worry about spam and you just have to have the names and addresses of the companies that you are trying to contact.

I would recommend calling each company after you have sent the mail piece to make sure they recieved it and then, from there you can get their email and send them more information from there.

 

Thank you everybody for the responses.

I am not sure about what step to take now, as some are saying it indeed is spam while others disagree. It would definitely be kept professional, non-spammy, and addressed to the specific individual. I would only send them one e-mail and would never send anything again if I get no response. Also, it is more of a ''sponsorship'' opportunity than an advertising one.

Thanks again. Please keep them coming and let me know if you have any first-hand experience with anything similar.

 

How about an old fashioned letter, make the first sentences direct and to the point. Might be more effective, try a few, try a few e-mails and a few phone calls and see what gets the best results.

 

As long as you follow the double opt in method you will be ok, and can not be accused of spamming.

Just read the can-spam laws if you want all the details.

 

What about a relay server?

 

Easy. Make sure you provide interesting offer for those who you are contacting. It doesn't matter much if it's mass email or individual in terms of spam (although in terms of getting more answers, I believe individual emails would be better). I believe you must be 100% sure that your offer can be somehow useful to the recipient. It's better to send emails to 10 really targeted people than approach random 1000 guys.

 

See.... That is were having a targeted lead capture landing page comes into play. You can target your audience by what they opt in to.

If they sign up to receive a free dog training ebook, then you now have an audience who will enjoy receiving more info via email about dog training, even if they include links to dog training affiliate programs and ads.

Listen, seriously guys I go over ALL of this in my free e-course found in my sig line.

 

The fact of the matter is that legally, IT IS SPAM. Anyone who says otherwise is misinformed.
It IS illegal.
But, if done propely, people may not mind and won't report you for spamming.

I had access to an excellent targeted mailing list which I couldn't use. It's a shame, but I don't want to risk it personally.

 

Wrong. If you use the double-opt-in method the person has requested to receive information from you. And if you are forthright about what you will send them, then you have no problem.

It works like this. You see my lead capture page, and you sign up to receive a free gift.

When you sign up you get an email asking you if you requested information from so and so.

If yes, then click the link below to receive more information. When you
start receiving further emails related to the reason for signing up, you may
opt out by clicking a remove link at the bottom of every email that goes out and you will be removed from future mailings.

If no, then you are prompted to simply ignore the email, and you
will be bothered no more.

 

Target your emails to the business you're contacting and there should be no problem. Be unique in each email, explain very clearly what you want and how it might interest the company receiving the email. Finish the email with your name and other relevant personal information.

 

Of course, I use the opt-ins myself.
I was referring to simply emailing people with adverts. If they never consented, it is spam, whichever way you look at it.

 

it actually depends on who gets your email. Some one can be offended or jealous and report you.