Aug
Could You Be a Spammer?
Sending email to people who did not ask for it is Spam. If you met someone at a mixer and they gave you their business card, you still cannot send them anything related to your business without their permission. So what’s the point of gathering business cards and contact information if you can’t send them anything?
If you’ve ever seen a web page where there was a place for you to sign up to receive something, that’s an Opt-in list builder. Basically, the law says that someone has to give you permission for you to send them anything about your business. What companies do to show that permission is that they ask people to fill out a form, typically asking for a first name and an email address, sometimes more, that’s located on their web site. Then they send an email to the address asking the recipient to click on a link saying that they really did ask for this information. This is called a double opt-in. Clicking on the second email proves that the person who owns the email address really meant to be put on your mailing list and that it wasn’t a prankster who signed them up.
So why would people want to sign up to receive email that’s trying to sell them something? Because they want the free gift being offered in exchange for permission to email them. The more valuable the gift, the more people will sign up for it.
There are a couple more rules that you need to be aware of when sending business email. Most important is that every email must contain a way for the recipient to opt-out. They must be able to tell you that they no longer want to receive your email.
Going back to the business card you collected at the mixer, what you can do is ask the person if it’s ok for you to email them more information about your business. If they say yes, you are then free to send them information, at least one time. If your intention is to put them on your general emailing list, try to get them to double opt in by sending them to your opt-in page on your web site.
Now, some people have been building a list without anyone opting-in. What can you do to be in compliance with the law is to simply send an individual email (not cc or bcc) to each person inviting them to subscribe to your email list. Again, offer something of value in exchange for their permission.
