Email & Coffee

• Don't scrape vertical market internet sites for email addresses. This practice is worse than cold-calling, because unlike telephone numbers, email addresses change as people come and go. Isn't it obvious that without a recognizable relationship, your email will get tossed into the junk box, deleted upon receipt, or at worst become a complaint factor with an ISP where ultimately you risk blacklisting your campaign with only one leg out the door.
• Don't purchase lists from brokers. There are few reputable list brokers of which I'm aware. In addition, the service tends to be pricey. Again, aside from the fact that they may be your demographic, the email address owners are not expecting your email. This practice is somewhat like the relative that continually pops over your house unexpectedly and expects to drink, eat and schmooze.
• Don't download your CRM lock, stock and barrel from the year 1 and start sending emails to Adam and Eve. Once Eve ate the apple, everything changed, and it is very likely that lots of things have churned and burned within your CRM over time.
• Don't use someone else's list without permission. Need I say more?

DO

• If you belong to associations, network with meetups, and regularly attend conferences and trade shows, there are contact lists for each of these groups. The concept here is that the email address owners are expecting to receive relevant information and have actively opted-in. Sometimes there are fees attached to ownership of these lists or messaging in any way is through the association's own ESP. It is worth your time ask, gather and engage.
• If you are business-to-consumer (B2C), then use your point of sale (POS) system to download recent and active customers. And as such, it's a good measure to post a web page that opts-in email address owners who may not have purchased your product but want to receive your email blasts.
• It is a good practice to download the most recent and active members of your CRM. If you have segmented the data in any way, you will be able to further customize your campaigns with specific messages that target the demographic members of your list.
• If you are business-to-business (B2B), you may employ a sign-up form at your website to gather prospects. These names may or may not be your competitors, something I'm certain has occurred to you before. While the sign-up is a great way to automate the list building process – whether or not you are concerned with competitors reading your product spec sheets – I suggest that you further qualify these anonymous names with a double opt-in confirmation email that requests new list members to modify their account details and requires the completion of certain fields that help you to better identify who they are.
• Your salesforce brings back handfuls of business cards from shows, meetings, seminars... The inclination is to add each and everyone onto your subscriber list. Should you do so, I recommend that you include a field within the list that identifies which sales person provided the name. This serves many purposes, one of the best is that you will be able to segment the list and send personalized and targeted campaigns to your client base from individuals within your salesforce, messages that the client will recognize, open and read.
• Include in the telephone greeting script that your customer service department employs a closing that asks prospects whether they would like to opt-in to your mailing list. Again, it's to your benefit that this process automatically generates a double opt-in confirmation email that entices prospects to modify their email account with more detailed information.

The moral of this story is that less is more. The better qualified your list, the better reputation you build with your email service provider (ESP) and internet service provider (ISP). If your business is built on quality, make certain that your subscriber list promotes your campaigns to the same level.