Ok so lets say i have 1000's of emails from a niche area that i have collected over the years from various sign ups, forums, and some scrapes. I am by no means looking to blast out junk garbage emails selling anything. My main goal is to have a mailing list in a niche area that would recieve emails about new blog posts, stories, press releases etc. By following the Can Spam guidlelines here http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.shtm "INteresting Read BTW" Meaning I create the whole unsubscribe link, my physical address, no fake sent from addresses. Im talking totally legit. Again im no doing anything misleading or even selling anything. Im just emailing them about a new story on my site? Is this legit? Is it a fine line? Just curious to hear from anyone who has really done something like this. Thanks
Are you planning to mail directly from your email account/domain/server? you said leads have been gathered over year, have you sent any messages at all before? a lot of the addresses might be old and not good to mail on. but you can only test to find out. the best way, is to setup account with a reputable mail provider (i use aweber, 1shoppingcart, getrseponse) and you would need to import your clients to one of these providers who meet/exceed all SPAM compliance laws.. if you import your clients, your clients would need to re opt-in to your newly created list. This helps make sure that they want mail/communications from you by confirming their subscription. having dealt with this in the past on numerous occassions.. its worth it if you have a 10k list that you have built a relationship with and you can do CPA offers. I found it works best with a recognized mailing provider.. Its too easy to get blocked/flagged for SPAM, i would not jeopordize your server from this..
A Aweber I was trying to remember that name. THanks Yeah i have a dedicated server, but was thinking of using a service. You bring up a good point about getting the list to opt in. I have emailed some on the list before and some i haven't. Like I said Im not selling anything, just promoting my blog, press releases etc in the industry that all these emails belong too. So if I signed up for Aweber and gave them a list of 10k emails would they do some sort of re optin campaign? I really don't think I will have a huge issue like I said I am not selling anything just promoting so topics people will hopefully be interesting in reading about.
aweber is cool, very nice platform to use and gives you great stats and 99.9% delivery to inbox (once the customer opt-in to receive your messages) it has newsletters available and reasonably priced ($19.95/mnth) how old are your clients that you have? do you have a site where you can also implement a subscribe form?
Yeah I could do a subscribe form. Most clients would be men over 40. Also about aweber you said people get the chance to opt in. That was my next question. With Aweber if you create an account and import 5000 emails will they by default shoot out an email to get them to opt in? My other question was if I had my own software which would do the same, Send an opt-in confirmation e-mail prior to adding them. Would that be considered spam?