Suppose I want to start collecting email addresses. Maybe to use for my own marketing purpose or maybe to sell. But how would I go about officially opting someones email in? I know you can use a free ringtone website or newsletter website as a gimmick to get people to sign up- that's not what I need to know. I need to know, what do you write in small print at the bottom that basically says "hey- i might send you some offers or sell/trade your email" in a more legitimate and legal way.
Hm... I'm pretty sure that selling email lists is frowned upon around here. But there are services such as the srds catalogs that list mailing addresses, emails, etc... and they charge companies hundreds of dollars to get access to those lists.
craze3, I suppose you know about aweber and getresponse right? Just inform your vistors before hand what will they will getting from you after they have given you their name and email addresses. I always do that. By offering a newsletter is NOT a gimmick if you really do provide a newsletter and contain valuable content. Just say that you respect their privacy and will not spam them... something in that line.... so that they will feel safer with you.
Red = Illegal (violation of the CAN-SPAM Act and Privacy Acts, and borderline illegal of violating somebody's constitutional rights) Opt-in means they voluntarily join your list. Build up a good site and add a mailing list manager to it. If you have a good site, people will join your list. Or you can promise them something for signing up (just make sure you deliver on whatever you promise to give). Actually that's exactly what you need to know. Mailing lists don't just generate themselves out of thin air. You need to work at building a site for them, generating interest, etc. See the following links: CAN-SPAM Act Requirements for Commercial Emailers http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.shtm CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can_Spam_Act_of_2003 Familiarize yourself with Can-Spam. If you violate it you will be liable for alot of money. There's lawsuits happening in the US now that are charging spammers $1/email they send. That may not seem like much, but do the math: 2 million people emailed x 10 emails each x $1/email fine = $20,000,000 fine by the US gov't. And yes, these cases are happening alot now.
Thanks, that's alot of good information! But how about these people: http://www.lead411.com/emaillists.html They sell and rent email lists and personal information, but they say they're CAN compliant. How is that possible?
Well the short answer is that you can say one thing, but do another. Alot of companies that offer marketing services claim they only follow ethical/white-hat practices, but in reality they don't. The long answer is that they could have included some legal mumbo jumbo in their email signup forms stating they will sell your email address (as most people don't bother to read terms of service), or they used a web scraper to pull the emails off webpages, or they bought their list from somebody else and are now capitalizing on it. It's probably a mix of everything. In a nutshell - never sell your email list. It's perfectly ok to sell advertising space in it, but never hand your list over to somebody else. It can, and most likely will, come back and bite you in the ass.