Why does my email marketing list have to be “opt in” and what does it mean?
There seem to be a lot of unwritten rules when building an email marketing list, and it’s easy to fall foul of some of them.
But one that IS important and most definitely shouldn’t be ignored is the ‘opt in’ rule, which states that if you want to build a marketing list of value, you have to make sure that the people on it have opted in to receive your info.
But what does this mean?
Well, I’ve had this argument a few times with people and I’ll tell you what it DOESN’T mean:
- It doesn’t mean that if I’ve given you my business card at a networking meeting you can add me to your list.
- It doesn’t mean that you can add me to your list if we’ve exchanged emails.
- And it doesn’t mean that you can send me your information because we’re connected on LinkedIn / Facebook / Ecademy etc.
Put simply, running an ethical ‘opt in’ email marketing list means that I have to have given you my permission to send me information.
By all means ask me if I want to be added to your list, encourage me to want to be added to your list, and give me good reasons to add myself to your list. But DON’T, under any circumstances, just decide to add me to your list on the off chance that I might be interested in your products or services.
Why not?
Well, it’s unprofessional for one. And unethical. It makes me think badly of you. It encourages me to ignore your emails at best, and report you as a spammer at worst.
No-one likes to be made to do something they don’t want – and adding someone to your email marketing list without their permission is one of the worst Internet Marketing sins around – make sure you don’t fall foul!
Juanita R. Takacs
I’ll be honest with you, this is some fantastic content you’ve got here.
Posted 3-3-2010
Dr Jain
Absolutely – we wouldn’t consider sending out information or marketing material to anyone unless they had opted in to our mailing list.
Anyone doing otherwise isn’t thinking about the bigger picture.
Posted 2-17-2010