Best Practices for Email

In today’s economic environment this holiday season, it is likely that you are challenged to protect their email marketing budget.  To assist you in responding to this challenge, ExactTarget, one of the company ESP I represent as a reseller in the Los Angeles area,  has developed an Executive Alert titled 10 Things Your C-Suite Must Know About Email Now.  There is great info in this piece! Here are some excepts and a link to download the pdf of the document- super holiday reading.

 

The Executive Alert serves to bridge the gap between marketers and company leaders in the understanding of email marketing and highlights best practices for email marketing implementation, benefits, and pitfalls to avoid.

 

Key highlights from the alert include:

·         In the midst of a weakening global economy, many companies struggling to make the numbers are reverting to what they know: cost-cutting across the board and that includes marketing budgets. This Executive Alert equips marketers with a list of 10 important email marketing best practices that they can easily share with their executive team to help them understand the critical role played by email in facilitating sales and maintaining strong customer relationships. Some of the email truths include:

−     Email is Everywhere

−     Email is Cost-Effective

−     Email is Profitable

−     Email Demands Permission

−     Email Demands Integration

−     Email is Personal

−     Email is Immediate

−     Email is Mobile

−     Email is Flexible

−     Email is Measurable

• The facts and statistics provided within the Executive Alert will give marketers the support they need when making the case for why it is critical to invest time, talent, and resources in email communication efforts.
• Some of the insights marketers can use to educate their executive team, include:

−     “Batch and blast” is not a strategy – it’s a recipe for subscriber revolt and delivery disaster.

−     Email is best used for customer retention and lead nurturing – other tactics such as search marketing are better for customer acquisition.

−     Email is not direct mail. The inbox is not the mailbox – it’s a far more personal space.

• Includes three “bonus” points which include:

−     Permission Email is Not Spam

−     Email is Social

−     Email is the Future

  

 Link to the pdf document

Consumers Opening Less Emails This Season

Opens and clicks have been falling, but marketers aren’t about to drop their favorite tactic.

Fewer consumers worldwide are opening marketing e-mails, according to a November 2008 study by MailerMailer.

The company found that the average marketing e-mail open rate fell to 13.20% in the first half of 2008, compared with 16.11% in the first half of 2007. Click rates also fell, from 3.18% in the first half of 2007 to 2.73% in the first half of this year.

MailerMailer said that some industries had higher open rates for their marketing e-mail, with banking/finance, religious/spiritual, government and telecommunications having more success than other verticals.

As revealed in previous studies, shorter subject lines performed better than longer ones. Subject lines of less than 35 characters yielded an average open rate of 19.6% and a 3.1% average click rate. E-mails with subject lines of 35 or more characters drew average open rates of 14.8% and average click rates of 1.9%.

As the most-established digital marketing tactic, e-mail may lack the glamour of other methods, but marketers continue to prize e-mail when it comes to producing results.

Online retailers worldwide surveyed in July and August 2008 by E-Consultancy and R.O.EYE said that e-mail was second only to paid search when it came to driving high volume. The sample size was relatively small, at 241 online retailers. However, the results are in line with similar surveys. Nearly four out of 10 search engine advertisers worldwide surveyed in January 2008 by Radar Research for the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) said e-mail marketing yielded the best ROI of any tactic.

Emarketing Myths - The Real Deal

Emarketing Myths: The Real Deal

There are still a number of email myths that are floating around marketing departments and next to the proverbial office water cooler. Let's take a closer look at some of them. 

Myth #1: The CAN-SPAM Act doesn't require permission

Reality: Many companies use the CAN-SPAM act as a license to send out email and avoid getting explicit permission before emailing. Permission is the foundation of customer relevance and trust.

CAN-SPAM does not require opt-in. However, if you don't have opted-in customers, the act requires a statement in your emails such as "This is an advertisement." Would you open emails with that in the subject line? Plus, the vast majority of email service providers will not let you send email through their system if the addresses are not opted-in.

Remember customer define spam as "Unwanted" mail - even if they have subscribed before in the past.

Myth #2: Open rates the best measure of email successReality: Today, the preview pane and image blocking have turned the open metric into an inaccurate metric that no longer measures what it was originally intended to. Build a "call to action" in your email and measure your click thru rates instead.

More and more people are now viewing their emails on mobile devices today, most of which do not render images. Recent email studies estimate that both consumers and business email users view from a quarter to a half of their emails in a preview pane, and 50-60 percent block images by default.

Myth #3: Email is cheap.

Reality: Your customers and the ISPs affect email results by access. Increased frequency can often deliver short-term results, but it also increases list churn through higher spam complaints and unsubscribes. Once a customer globallly unsubscribes you cannot resent to them unless they request to be added to your list again. Your customer list and subsequent lifetime value is an asset - treat it wisely.

Use email to drive more sales or conversions doing more personalized, segmented, and targeted messaging rather than just sending the same messages over and over.

 

Myth #4: "I cannot improve my delivery rates"

Reality: Your sender reputation with your ISP really affects your delivery rate. Concentrate on it and you can improve your delivery.

• Obtain subscriber permission
• Authenticate your emails
• Perform regular list hygiene
• Minimize spam complaints through relevancy and frequency monitoring
• Monitor your sender reputation
• Remove hard bounces, unsubscribe requests and spam complaints immediately
• Eliminate coding errors
• Checking for and remove questionable content and design approaches (e.g., single large images) that may get your messages blocked or filtered.

 

Myth #5: Larger lists are better

Reality:   A smaller list of highly engaged subscribers will outperform a larger mostly inactive list everytime. These days marketing is about ROI. Segment your list by subscriber engagment and RFM. Then send and manage those groups individually - You might be surprised at the results!  

Email is the perfect channel for engaging subscribers through a highly personalized and targeted approach.

Myth #6: "Batch and blast" still works fine

Reality: Not all customers are the same! Advances in email marketing software now make sophisticated techniques such as segmenting,  lifecycle, and trigger-based email programs possible for all marketers.

Research also supports moving an email program from simple broadcasting to a more targeted approach. Conversions in clickstream-based emails outpaced untargeted broadcast emails 4 to 1, according to a 2006 JupiterResearch study.

And, while targeted or trigger-based campaigns can cost more to produce (according to salary requirements), they also generate far more revenue, the study said.

Triggered campaigns on average bring in 171 percent more revenue than broadcast campaigns; lifecycle campaigns perform 389 percent better and clickstream campaigns perform 781 better than broadcast, according to the JupiterResearch report.

How to get started:

• Reallocate resources: Instead of sending two weekly "blast" messages, turn one into a trigger-based message. Once you do that, it can run virtually on autopilot thereafter.
• Analyze: Compare a broadcast campaign to a targeted one -- even one as simple as emailing the entire list versus previous buyers. Results do not lie. 
• Learn:  You can avail yourself to a multitude of email conferences - they are happening all the time - including the mention of ET Connections 08 below.  Explore webinars, whitepapers and blog posts online. 
• Do one thing different with every message: Consider targeting recipients who clicked on a specific link in your last broadcast email, and test the results. That's all it takes to get started

Shrink Your House Email List and Increase Your Results - What?

Subscribing to an email list is easy-so easy in fact, it leads some subscribers to request emails in which they have only a passing interest. As time goes by, that half-hearted interest can dwindle and become non-existent.

The Impact of "Dead Weight Subscribers" on Your Email Performance

Many marketers work hard to build larger mailing lists, but by doing so they can adversely affect the very data used to reflect campaign success. Current research has shown Conversion Rate, Open Rate and Click-through Rate to be the metrics most used by marketers when assessing email performance.

1. "Dead weight subscribers" who receive, but rarely or never engage with your emails, have a negative impact on these key metrics simply by remaining on your recipient list.
2.  They also make it more difficult to accurately test the success of different email strategies (e.g. subject line testing), as these types of subscribers can skew your results.

These subscribers will eventually tire of deleting your emails without opening them, and may inaccurately mark your message as SPAM even though they opted-in to your list. The easily-accessible "Report as SPAM" tools on popular email clients can be viewed as more convenient than the unsubscribe process, and uninterested recipients are more likely than anyone to take this path of least resistance-which can harm your reputation as a sender. 

A smaller list made up of actively engaged subscribers should deliver improved email metrics, and can be attained without taking the ultimate step of deleting addresses.

Steps to Take Before Deleting

1.  Send an open-ended survey to your subscribers who have not opened and/or clicked a link within an email in the past six months, asking for feedback as to what content they would like to see in future emails. Make sure the subject line (e.g., "Help Improve Our Newsletter") makes it clear this is not just another typical email communication to these subscribers; this will help produce greater feedback.

 Not only will this feedback provide valuable insight into areas where your emails may be lacking, but being spoken to directly can re-engage these subscribers with your email. If certain subscribers continue to show no response to your emails even after special effort has been made to target them, it is likely they have no interest in receiving further communications, and they can be removed with no regrets.

2.  Another less permanent approach would be to filter the email addresses of all dead weight subscribers into a separate list. This way, the overall number of subscribers stays the same and the same content can be delivered to all subscribers, but the segmented list of dead weight subscribers will have its metrics reported separately from the main list. You can also leverage this separation to test various tactics to increase engagement with these subscribers, such as differing subject lines and offers.

Emarketing101

In 2008, there are still some companies use a desktop client (like Outlook) to send email marketing messaging, You have got to be kidding!

Most people would agree that anyone who sends targeted email campaigns is better off using a web based  email-marketing platform instead of blasting from Outlook. Yes, you can send email from your Outlook or other individual email client. That doesn't mean you should do it.

The few dollars you save by sending bulk email through a desktop client or a home-grown solution is more than offset by the opportunity cost of lost potential business, lack of metrics, and customer ill will.

What you don't get by sending email thru Outlook:

Lack of Metrics

Lack of unsubscribe managment

Lack of segmentation

Lack of personalization

There are a multitude of reputable email service providers in the marketplace starting at less than a hundred dollars a month. You owe it to yourself and your company to move to email 2.0!

Email marketing does not have to equal spam.

Just because you're not a Fortune 500 company, that doesn't make your sales-solicitation email or fund-raising request any less commercial. CAN-SPAM doesn't exempt small businesses or nonprofits from following the regulations for commercial email.

Let's also consider the modern-day version of spam. It isn't just unsolicited email sent by foreign companies in Croatia using forged IP addresses.

People now define spam as any email they don't want, even opt-in email. Welcome to the real world of emarketing.

Even if you have explicit permission to email everyone in your contact list, they aren't all going be interested in everything you email. Can you segment your list to send only relevant email? Can you measure subscriber engagment?

In Outlook, my customers  think I'm emailing each one personally.

Now, let's look more closely at that message. How are you sending it? With 150 names in the To: or CC: field? That doesn't work..

People hate seeing their own email address broadcast to a bunch of strangers! I know I do.

Don't think you're off the hook because you figured out how to use the BCC: field (the one under the CC: field in the address form of an email message). Sure, that shows only one address in the To: field when your recipient opens it up, and it sort of looks personalized. 

Remember,  ISPs are still likely to block or junk-folder any email with 50 or more addresses in any of the fields as possible spam.

Here is the rub:

• You're using an email client that was never designed to handle bulk email. It doesn't send email at the same capacity, and it doesn't automate a lot of the email detail work, like adding or removing addresses or processing bounced emails. 

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What's the most important deliverability statistic?

 Is there just one statistic that can truly tell you what you need to know about your e-mail marketing program success? There are several numbers that are important in judging overall deliverability health, but if you told me that I could only choose one number, I would take complaint rate.

Complaint rate is the ratio of e-mail complaints received per 1,000 e-mails sent. E-mail complaints happen when users click the spam button in their e-mail client and report you to their provider as having sent unsolicited e-mail. The number you want to try and achieve is less than a 0.2% rate. So you get only two complaints per thousand messages. That's a pretty small number to achieve, but every complaint that you go over that threshold causes incremental damage to your e-mail reputation. A high complaint rate shows ISPs that your users do not wish to receive your communications.

If you are getting complaints, it means you have room for improvement. Take the feedback positively and try to improve. Look at your subject line, mailing frequency, content and the relevance of your messages. Consider sending a survey to determine recipients' likes and dislikes.

E-mail works for Banks and Card Issuers

They are getting better ROI than other industries. (interesting insights from a recent article in emarketer)

If you have a mailbox, it will come as no surprise that US credit card companies and other financial services firms spent more on direct marketing in 2007 than any other industry. Banks and credit card issuers are masters of mailing targeted offers, and that mail accounts for nearly 42% of their direct marketing budgets.

E-mail is becoming part of this massive direct marketing effort as well, according to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA)'s "Direct Marketing Facts and Figures in the Financial Services Industry."

The DMA had previously released some information from the study in a press release, but a recent Marketing Charts article cited more, revealing e-mail as the number three direct marketing tactic in the industry.

The DMA also said that banks and credit card direct marketers had a better return on investment in 2007 than did any other industry, at $13.37 per dollar spent.

That may have something to do with the high open rate that the financial services industry gets.

E-mail list management company MailerMailer found that nearly 29% of direct marketing e-mails sent by financial services companies were opened during the second half of 2007—more than for any other industry.

eMarketer predicts that financial services spending on online advertising will also continue to increase through at least 2011. That means more offers on any given Web site, not just in your inbox.

Since e-mail marketing works for banks and card issuers, consumers can also expect more offers in their inboxes to join those in their mailboxes.

 

Start the Year Right and Win Back Inactive Customers

A reactivation campaign can help you revitalize your list.

How many email messages did you send out in your last campaign?  How many of your recipients actually opened or clicked on your email?

Hmmmm, that's a different story. Remember that with email, size doesn't really matter. Performance is what counts, not just for your email program and its bottom line but also for your sender reputation.

A reactivation campaign is the answer here, and it's just as important as any acquisition campaign. It will help you clean out the dead wood, re-energize your list and reclaim some of the money you spent acquiring and engaging those addresses in the first place.

Why reactivation works
Your email service provider might be thrilled that you ship out millions of messages in each campaign, but you could actually hurt yourself and your sender reputation and spend money you don't have to when you send to people who never bother to open or act on your messages.

Sure, maybe they did sign up with you once upon a time. Since then, though, they abandoned those mailboxes, and you never noticed. The ISPs are noticing, and they'll treat your email accordingly.

Many use these long-dead email addresses as spam traps to monitor your list hygiene and measure your sender reputation. The dirtier your list, the more likely they'll route your email messages to the junk folder or block you.

Just by looking at your database, you can't tell which subscribers actually abandoned their mailboxes, who deletes your messages without opening them or who still is sort of interested in you but hasn't seen any reason to open.

A reactivation campaign will identify which addresses you can safely drop from your list without killing off live ones and re-establish connections with past customers.

Think of it as going on a second honeymoon. Just like a tired marriage needs a spark to keep it going, your subscribers who take you for granted need a fresh, new reason to keep opening your messages.

You know you get the most action from your newest subscribers. Apply the tactics you use on them to rejuvenate the inactives on your list instead of spending more money to replace them.

First, identify your inactives
This takes a little database work. Create a separate mailing list, and add anyone who hasn't opened or clicked on a message in, say, six months or longer, to it. Send a message with a pleading subject line, such as "We miss you! Please come back!" Go ahead, grovel a little. Include a special offer or invitation to fill out a new profile or encourage them to unsubscribe once and for all.

Move any responding addresses back to your active list. Send the message again, this time saying you'll take them off your list if they don't respond in, say, a week. Then, scratch them from your list if they don't respond. It might kill you to do that, but a smaller, more vital list will do you more good than one where nobody's home anymore.

Next, keep everybody interested
These tactics will keep your whole list engaged and energized:

1.  Ask them what they want to get. It could be you have lots to offer, but your subscribers aren't getting what they really want. For example, if you're a book seller it may be that someone subscribed to your general list is really only interested in mysteries. Ask recipients to take control of what they want to get, and you may see renewed interest.

2.  Make them an offer they can't refuse. Discounts, new products, samples and free shipping can work wonders for retailers. B2B marketers can renew interest with a special whitepaper or discount on a conference or webinar.

3.  Incentivize! Ask users to update their profile, and give them a chance to win a big-screen TV. (iPods are, well, kind of over unless it's a really upscale one.) Be careful to keep the focus on the email, though. If the prize is too good, people will re-engage, only to click the spam button when your email actually arrives.

4.  Threaten to break up. Tell subscribers if they don't click, you're going away. It's possible that your heavily texted message is in fact being read, but you can't know it because recipients don't enable the images. It's fair to say that if recipients don't let you know somehow that they're still there, still breathing, that you'll drop them from the list.

5.  Ask what is on their minds. Simple surveys, sweetened with a little incentive (see No. 2), can help you find out what's going on. Maybe you're sending too often and they turn a deaf ear. Or, you're not coming around enough and they drift away.

6.  Change your format. Are you sending long, chatty emails to people who read them on their phones and don't get down to your offer? Or, do you stuff all your content into a single large image that won't show up? Offer a text format to people who read email on alternative platforms and make it short and sweet.

The effort you spend now to wake up your list and re-engage with them will pay off in better deliverability and a higher ROI.

The 10 Most Ignored Email Best Practices

Listed below are the 10 most frequently ignored best practices. If any ring a bell, chances are your email program could be underperforming.

1. Provide a subscription-administration center in each message.

Why it's important: The admin center keeps you connected to your subscribers and helps distinguish you from unsolicited email. It should include the email address they used to subscribe, an unsubscribe link, a link to your privacy policy and preference page and your contact information: street address, phone number and email address.

2. Provide a site search function.

Why it's important: Allows users to search for products, past article, company information, etc., without having to first click to the site then initiate the search.

3. Provide a forward-to-a-friend link.

Why it's important: Giving subscribers a link to send your emails on to their friends is a more proactive stance than just including a line somewhere in the message asking them to pass on your messages. The link sends the request through your server, which can also allow you to track who's forwarding your message, how often and what actions result. It also ensures the forwarded message will render properly, which may not happen when a recipient simply forwards through their email client.

4. Provide a subscription link.

Why it's important: Offering a subscription function in your newsletter allows readers who received it from a friend to sign up without having to search your site for instructions. 

5. Add-to-safe-senders-list request.

Why it's important: Most email clients won't block email from a sender listed on the recipient's personal whitelist and image rendering is also less likely to be blocked (also a safe-sender list, approved-sender list, etc.)

6. Link to a Web version.

Why it's important: Many email clients either block images or don't render HTML messages properly, especially if they read email in a preview pane. Providing this link allows readers to view your message in their Web browser instead.

7. Provide a telephone contact number.

Why it's important: Email is fast, but a phone call is faster. Many respondents want to get in touch with you directly, especially buyers, clients, or salespeople, may want to get in touch with you directly. This way you spare them the extra step of going to your Web site and hunting down your contact information.

8. Display the recipient's email address.

Why it's important: Showing the recipient’s address helps boost the email's credibility and helps readers who may be receiving duplicate copies under several different email addresses unsubscribe from the correct address.

9. Provide navigation links within the email and to the Web site.

Why it's important: Navigation links near the top of newsletters with multiple departments or articles help readers find information quickly and efficiently. Multiple site links help your readers move directly to the areas on your Web site they need or want, which adds value and strengthens your relationship with them.

10. Provide an email address for feedback or sender contact.

Why it's important: The email contact address gives subscribers a way to reach you to ask questions, send comments or alert you to a problem, such as an unsubscribe link that doesn't work. More senders provide a contact email address than a telephone number, but even more should add this feature to build their credibility and relationship with recipients.

Improving Email with Testing

Start building a testing program for your  email marketing efforts  today.

Without proper testing, there is no way to tell what your customers are actually seeing or how they are responding to your message. Before you start to test anything, you must first establish a  plan that outlines what you want to test and what you will consider a success or a failure.  Make sure to consider many factors.  For example, will a successful test be dependent on more opens, higher clickthroughs or increased purchases?  Without determining the key metrics for a successful test before performing it, you will be unable to determine which message performs better.

In order to properly test different subject lines or content, you need to verify that your customers are receiving your email and that it is rendering properly, because if they don't receive your email, nothing else matters. To do this, there are a number of valuable tools that you'll want to become familiar with, including a campaign preview tool, an anti-spam testing tool and a seedlisting tool to see if your messages make it to the inbox or junk folder.These tools should be used as part of your regular campaign process, both before and during your send.

Test to see how your message renders
Once your message is fully created and coded, test it in a campaign preview tool. These tools allow you to see how your message will appear in the various email clients. If any issues arise during this test (image rendering, formatting, content blocks, etc.), you then should make the necessary changes and test it again. Without this form of testing, you run the risk of confusing your customer or missing an opportunity to communicate key pieces of information that can result in increased sales and customer satisfaction.

If your solution does not have that capability, just set up various test email accounts that you to can monitor at the various ISPs and send you message to your list that has all of these addresses. 

Test to see where your messages are placed
If your message doesn't make it to the inbox, you are missing out on potential revenue. Plus, having your email land in the junk folder is  damaging to your brand. If you don't test inbox placement during every campaign, you run the risk of doing the same thing over and over, resulting in multiple ineffective campaigns. Pivotal Veracty has a great tool for testing this using email seeds.

Test your content
Content is one of the most fundamental and overlooked aspects of testing. By making easy and small changes to your content, like changing one word in the subject line or highlighting a product feature, you can increase clicks and sales dramatically. In most cases, A/B and multivariate testing capabilities will be embedded into your email platform. If not, you'll want to find a solution that natively supports these critical testing functions. When testing campaigns with different content, you'll want to start by changing one element at a time. This allows you to more easily see what factor is having a direct impact on your email response rate. An easy and effective way to do this is to pull two randomized samples from your entire list. Depending on the size of your list, there are two common ways to perform A/B split tests.

A/B testing
For smaller lists, it is common to split the entire list into two randomized groups and send one version of the email to each of the groups and measure which group had a better response rate for opens, clicks or revenue generated. Next, apply those findings to future mailings. For larger lists where statistical significance is not a concern, many marketers use a 10/10/80 split, but you could also select an exact number of recipients for each test mailing. This method allows you to determine the best performing email and then send it to the remainder of the list for maximum impact. 

Multivariate testing
There is also value in testing a carefully selected combination of factors so that you can determine if any of the test elements interact with each other positively or negatively. There are cases where two best performing elements from earlier tests demonstrate poor performance when combined. However, before you embark on a multivariate testing program, you should recognize that multivariate testing is much more complicated than A/B split testing and requires advanced planning, stringent adherence to the test plan and an extra level of sophistication to interpret the results.

Learn from your results
Be sure to track and document your testing results and share information on what works with key stakeholders involved with your email program. So remember, don't be afraid to test. By understanding your customers better, you will send them more relevant messages, which will increase your ROI.

Building Your Email List

Email is a quick, inexpensive, and powerful way to target and address your various markets, especially when compared to direct mail,  and other traditional marketing channels. Listed below are a couple of pointers to make sure you get off on the right track.

Building Your  Email List   ----  Be selective

If you want to build an email list of existing customers, be sure to obtain their permission first instead of adding their names without telling them.Provide a value proposition that makes them want to be on your email list. For example, offer them an additional three-month warranty on a product in exchange for receiving product updates by email. This approach gives you the opportunity to strengthen the bond between you and your customers. If you add an email address without permission, recipients can get fiesty- everyone gets too much email - they will complain and mark your messaging as spam  and possibly shut down the relationship with you altogether.

When building an email list of fresh contacts, remember bigger is not necessarily better. You want engaged customers --not just a list of dead nonresponders. Be sure to build a list of qualified names out of which a certain percentage will turn into prospects. Out of those prospects, a certain percentage should turn into conversions. When done correctly, you can enjoy higher sales results because your offers are sent to the right audience at the right times.

To qualify new contacts, many companies require individuals to confirm their initial request to get onto an email list by replying to a confirmation email. This is called "double opt-in", and it can slow your acquisition rate by 50% or more, but typically makes for a much more qualified and responsive email list.

Asking a new contact to take a single action to get onto your email list is called "single opt-in". This approach grows your list faster than double opt-in, though the list may not be as responsive and as rich with qualified prospects.

Remember, once permission is granted for your email communications, relevancy and timeliness determines whether or not a recipient views your emails as spam.

• Collect email addresses from registration cards, point-of-sale, customer service, and sweepstakes. For prospecting purposes, gather email addresses from your website, online white papers offered, from visitors to your trade show booths and from sales calls. Be careful: Just because you already have a person's email address for one reason or another doesn't necessarily mean you have permission to start sending all sorts of email campaigns to them. In all cases, give people an expectation of the value they will receive in return for handing over their email address to you."
• Post a privacy notice on your registration page at your website. People are understandably suspicious of any site they come across on the Internet so it's best to address their concerns up front. As reported by eMarketer, IMT Strategies found "93% of US internet users consider it very important that the site display a statement of how it will use personal information."
• Show prospective subscribers a sample of what they are signing up for at your website. 
• Keep your registration page simple by asking for minimal information. You can always get more information later using surveys and incentives once an individual is added to your email list.

Watch out for:

• Don't make it difficult for people to stop hearing from you by email. Make it easy for a person to leave ("opt-out") of any or all email communications. For example, people may still wish to receive your product updates but not your company news. If it's difficult to be removed from your email list, recipients can complain to their ISP or self-appointed spam police who in turn can have you blacklisted. Being blacklisted means the recipient's ISP will automatically filter out any inbound email containing your name or email address.
• Don't promote your company or services through the renting, sponsoring, or bartering of email lists without performing a background check of the list owners and asking how they obtained their email addresses. You could be guilty by association if you are perceived as doing business with a spammer. Furthermore, spam laws are currently getting tougher in this area. Monitor the latest developments in legislation by visiting www.spamlaws.com.

Pre-checked opt-in boxes: Some online subscription forms have the "check" box for receiving email communications pre-checked. While this speeds list growth, some

U.S.

courts and legislative bodies do not consider this practice as being truly an "opt-in" choice. Your list grows faster employing this practice, but the people who passively join your list in this fashion may not be as qualified as those who proactively check the box.