I will now present a roundup of the most widely used methods of e-mail advertising, with a special emphasis on non-abusive, or non-spam, methods.

In-House Announcement List

An in-house list is one of the greatest assets of the Internet-enabled business. The announcement list could be a list of customers, prospects, suppliers, vendors or partners. You'll use the list to keep in touch with your company's public, sending out press releases, new product announcements, special offers, personnel changes or other news.

The announcement list may not be so overtly promotional as other kinds of lists, or so formal as a newsletter. It's a way to keep in touch and sustain relationships and community on the Net.

In-House Promotional List

This kind of list is definitely promotional. You use it to send advertising, or commercial e-mail, to past customers and prospects. You can build such a list on a voluntary, or opt-in basis, by asking people to give you their e-mail addresses when they visit your Web site, when they fill out registration forms, at trade shows, when your sales people are calling on them, or on other occasions.

For this kind of list to be truly "opt-in," you must clearly inform the person that you will be sending them commercial e-mail. You should make it easy for them to get off the list whenever they want to. Keep in mind that, in order to maintain a level of trust with the people on your list, you need to be careful how you use it. Make sure that you don't abuse the list by mailing too frequently or by sending inappropriate material.

E-Mail Newsletter

An e-mail newsletter, or "e-zine," is content-oriented. Many companies send out free newsletters with helpful articles and news items in their industry or area of expertise.

In order to develop a real readership, your e-zine should provide truly helpful information. Some of the material, though, can be used to "soft-sell" your own products or services. Or you can include in-line ads or classifieds, graphically separating them from the newsletter's articles. By sponsoring useful Internet content, you can gain exposure for your company and build your "community" on the Net.

Sponsoring Newsletters and Discussion Lists

Many e-zines, as described above, accept sponsorships and ads. So do a number of e-mail discussion groups. These media can give you access to targeted, responsive audiences for your promotions.

Opt-In Promotional Lists

Opt-in (or voluntary) lists work something like the spam lists. A list company charges you a fee to broadcast your ad to a large number of recipients.

The difference is in how the list is compiled. Rather than vacuuming up e-mail addresses from newsgroups and Web pages, the opt-in providers build their lists on a subscription basis. One method they use is to set up a Web page where Internet users can sign up to be on commercial e-mail lists in their areas of interest, by checking off boxes on the page.

Opt-in lists are usually smaller than spam lists and more expensive. But they are "low-risk" and can provide you with a willing audience for your offer.

Borderline Practice: Cold Prospecting by E-Mail

Another way to do e-mail promotions is by contacting Internet users with your offer, one-by-one. By reading a person's Web page or their posts to a discussion list, you might surmise that this is someone who would like to hear about your offer.

Exercise caution with this approach. Some Internet users will object to any unsolicited advertising. When doing cold prospecting by e-mail, it's best to use a personal approach. Avoid any copy that sounds like a canned sales pitch.

Borderline Practice: Invitational Broadcast

Most spam messages include "remove" instructions, which say, basically, 'If you ask us pretty-please to take your name off our list, then you won't have to receive our messages anymore.' Anyone who's played this game knows that it's usually not true.

An alternate approach some e-mailers use is a one-time invitation to join a commercial e-mail list. The mailer makes it clear that the recipient will not receive any more messages unless they specifically request to be on the list.

This approach will be less offensive to some users, who may be grateful that you're not going to send them unwanted junk for the rest of their lives. However, many people will still feel that you have spammed them and will retaliate.

So which methods should you use? I do think etiquette, courtesy and ethics are highly relevant to business and marketing. However, as I have mentioned before, for marketers I especially recommend considering the risks of e-mail advertising. So I've come up with a concept that I call ...

"The E-Mail Marketing Hierarchy of Risk"

... which looks like this:

High Risk

• "Rented" spam list
• Homemade spam list
• One-time broadcast
• Cold prospecting
• "Rented" opt-in list
• In-house opt-in list

Low Risk

Highest risk of all comes from using the services of the professional spammers who offer to send your ad out to millions of people cheap. Your message will go out to multitudes of Internet users who will hate you for it.

Second on the risk hierarchy is the home-made spam list, made up of addresses you have harvested yourself, using one of the do-it-yourself spamware programs. At least you have some control over how the list is built. But you will still be hated.

The borderline practices of one-time invitational broadcast and cold prospecting, discussed previously, will probably result in less retribution than the more common spamming methods. They are still relatively risky, depending on how you go about it.

Opt-in lists give you lower risk, with your own in-house lists being least risky of all. The risk is not zero, however. Some people will forget that they signed up to be on the list. Also, some recipients may forward your message anonymously to their friends, who will think you spammed them.

Again, one of my primary e-mail marketing principles is:

"The risks of advertising by e-mail are directly proportional to the number of people who don't want to receive your message."

For that reason, I recommend using low-risk methods for e-mail promotions. To minimize the risk, I suggest you adopt my recommended policy:

"No one should be placed on an e-mail list without their permission. No one should have to ask to be removed from an e-mail list they never asked to be on in the first place."

Next Chapter: The Direct Email Campaign

© 1998-2000, Alfred R. Bredenberg. All rights reserved.