Email Blasts
GrAcUc79 (98 points) | Tue, 2008-06-17 17:19Hey Guys I was asked to do an email blast for a client of mine whom Ive done printing for. Now I do not know much about web and how to go about this so I come to you guys to see if you can give me some advice.
So he has a restaurant and has gathered an email list of about 500 or so names that his customers filled out. Now he wants to send a mass email to all of his list. I have done some research online and saw I can do this through Constant Contact for a fee. Now my question is I have heard that if someone who receives the email reports it as spam or a certain amount of people mark it as spam that the account can be cancelled. I have also heard about double opt ins and that sort of thing but does a double opt in apply to this scenario?
If people report it as spam even though they filled out and supplied their email address will my account be terminated?
Not sure how it all works and would love to hear how you guys handle a project like this.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Use a free service like Constant Contact or Mail Chimp. There are many more services out there. They make this process easy.
These services allow for opt out and clearly state the purpose and sender of the email and thus comply with most state's spam laws, if any. California requires these things and a few more, that's the state I'm familiar with. Check with every state you are sending your mail to to ensure compliance.
You're good if the blast is to a list of people who have agreed to be contacted. Blasting to strangers isn't good practice. Build that list! :)
You would undoubtedly get a warning from your ISP if your email was generating enough complaints, but this is rare. Your list of 500 shouldn't be a problem.
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Powerpoint is not a design application
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The Salon Design Tech
Adding to what nat said, just be sure you add disclaimer text in the email (or, it could be added in when you're working with the email blast vendor of your choice - see what they offer).
My company sends out email blasts to anyone who's registered at our web site, and we state something to the effect of:
"You are receiving this email because you are a registered user of ___.com. Click here to unsubscribe from future emails." (with an obvious link that takes them to a user preferences area provided by our email blast client where they can "opt out" of future mailings.)
just please make sure that link you give works properly and test it regularly. i've been getting more and more email from legitimate companies (in particularly recently from the washington post and jupiter images) where the opt-out links in their emails didn't work. that's *very* frustrating and will leave the people receiving the emails with a bad taste in their mouths about your client.