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How do I turn my [100,000+] customer e-mail list into one I'm allowed to send e-mails to?

by BargainBookMole
8 replies
hi:
I have an e-mail list of well over 100,000 customers that I have sold books to [going back to 2005] mostly via Amazon.com, Ebay, Half.com, etc, I'd like to make use of the list to promote a new venture [Bargain Book Mole: Guaranteed to Find the Lowest Book Prices Online or the Book Is On Us! which guarantees to find the lowest book prices online or we pay for your book], but am obviously concerned about being a spammer.

Am I allowed to make use of my e-mail list or is it essentially useless? If so, please help figure out what I need to do.
thanks!

Bargain Book Mole: Guaranteed to Find the Lowest Book Prices Online or the Book Is On Us! Guaranteed to find the lowest prices online or the book is on us!
#100 #allowed #customer #e-mail delivarability #e-mail list #e-mail marketing #e-mail open rate #e-mail spam filters #email #emails #list #send #turn
  • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
    Technically, legally, it's not considered spam if you have a prior business relationship with them. (But I am not a lawyer, so you should consult with a lawyer if you want 100% certainty on that point.)

    Practically speaking, however, if you start eMailing these people out of the blue, you're likely to get a high number of spam complaints.

    You might give them a special offer as a prior customer, which may reduce complaints.

    Can you segment the list by age? You're probably less likely to get complaints from people who have recently purchased a book through you then from someone who bought a book from you five years ago.

    Do you have mailing addresses from when you shipped the books? Perhaps you could eMail recent customers and snail mail older ones.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Murphy
      If they opted in, you should be good to go. If they DOUBLE opted in, you're good to go.

      Part of the equation is where you got the list and as Dan mentioned, having a prior biz relationship with them sets it up.

      Do you mail out to them at all? I would think if you sold them books before, you could just get back into sending them information, free book reviews, surveys etc and this will thin the herd a little bit.

      People that don't want to hear from you will un-subscribe. The ones that stay will be more open to hearing about your new offer.
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      • Profile picture of the author bretski
        Yeah... good luck importing that email list into aweber. I had been in the process of importing about 8000 authors from an article directory that I own into my aweber account because there is no way to do any sort of tracking when emailing them from the article directory dashboard. These are people that get emails from me just about every day as articles are approved. Aweber made me have them opt-in again and when my opt-in rate was too low and a bunch of the isnare users unsubbed they refused to allow me to import any more authors. So... good luck with that!

        Oh....but BTW, Aweber had no problem with jacking the monthly cost of my account up and when I offered to delete the list if they would put me back at my old price point... yeah, they said just to leave it like it was but not to try to import any more from my article directory. No mention of taking me back to the former price point.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
    You should consult an attorney.

    I do know that if you have some one who has purchased a product from you and provided their email address you may legally contact them in certain context's.

    Also you will want to know if their is a limit on the time of last contact that would disqualify you from further contact.
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  • Profile picture of the author paulie888
    It appears to me that these people haven't actually opted into to an email list yet, otherwise you'd not be asking this question. You could try importing them into your aWeber or Getresponse autoresponder, but that will require a double opt-in, and seeing that your customer list goes way back to 2005 I'm doubtful if many are going to confirm their emails. However, you don't know until you actually try it, right?

    Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author xaban
    I'm sure the only way is to ask them if they agree to receive anything (a newsletter? e-books?).

    I believe you have right to contact them with that question.
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  • Profile picture of the author BargainBookMole
    thanks for responses. I don't think it's the customers who are the problem as much as the e-mail detectors; wondering if anyone has successfully done what I'm asking about
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    > Plus unique free instant price-checking tools (Firefox and IE add-ons); check book prices from any website (and only appears when you look at a book).
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  • Profile picture of the author TheDebtEliminator
    Greetings Bargain Book Mole,

    When in doubt, always consult an attorney, before taking action.

    If you have a solid dynamite short report that you could give as a freebie ... this might be the incentive to have them double opt in and allow you to e-mail them.

    I would recommend, that you state in your opening e-mail, that you will send them e-mails only when something is important for our great value that they might be interested in.

    And that this will be few and far between, meaning Max once a week.

    I would do it in smaller quantity increments, and start with the newest ones first, that will give you a track record on spamming complaints, so that you can decide if you should continue?

    All the best ... Ron
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