Need Help With My List

Do you personally own the list?..

If you didn't collect the names yourself via opt-in then you should ignore any thoughts you are having about using this list..

Peace


Jay

No I didn't collect the list myself, it is from the student directory at my school.

It might have addresses I am not sure, but about 75% of the students live in campus housing, who's mail service is basically a joke. I don't think I would get much of a response.

However, everyone checks their school email everyday, which is why I was most interested in using that.

Thanks for the idea though.

Does anyone else have suggestions

Who owns the list?

The owner is subject to privacy laws. If they get sued or prosecuted for handing out the private information in their care, I'm sure they'll be only too happy to pass some of the pain along to you.

This is not a good idea on many levels.

Cheers,

Neil

You probably do not want to mail this list. You do not own any rights to the addresses on that list.

Well I guess technically my university owns the list.

I do have rights to the list because I am a student and pay to go to the school, and the list is a resource for students to use to contact each other.

So really, I don't see how I could be prosecuted for using it?

It's tricky.

It's all a question of "opt-in."

When the students gave their email addresses to the university then they gave permission for the list to be published. They did NOT however give you permission to SPAM the list with coupons and offers. Internet Marketing is based on "Permission Marketing." Once you get permission from someone in the way of an "opt-in" then you can market to them until the cows come home (or until they unsubscribe.)

Since you don't have permission then you shouldn't market to them.

When I was in school a buddy of mine made some GREAT money by printing up a flyer that he left en masses in every dormitory in campus. He would go to local businesses (pizza parlors, convenience stores, bars, dry cleaners) and sell coupons in the flyer. It only cost the business owner a couple of hundred dollars to run the ad and my friend got the money up front. Then he paid for the printing and delivered the flyers personally. Since coupons came into the business it was easy for business owners to track the succcess of the ads.

You could start this way and include a website address to subscribe to weekly offers...that way you can build a list of students on campus and start marketing other products to them...

Ok, thanks for the good advice Mark, I'll lay off of that temping plot and try something.

I'm thinking of posting fliers around campus offering web design and hosting.

You can't. This would be the very definition of being a spammer and getting in trouble would simply be the natural result of spamming.

Rebtl,

My school's course portal features a similar mail all function as you do. However, it is strictly for corresponding with TAs, profs, and other students regarding class material, tests, lecture notes, etc.

If you send solicitations through your school mail, you would probably get your account shut down and you would miss out on the important school emails that I assume you get.

Curtis

Point Taken Guys, I'll do it the right and find a way to get them to opt in.

The way to take advantage of the list is to convert it to an optin. Create a website, on the school network with some type of redeeming social value that students would want to signup to, a rideshare board, a study network, a used computer exchange. Make it university specific and host it on the edu. The use a mailing list integration system like BigTie! (shameless plug bigtie.hfconcepts.com) and send a mail to the students intoducing them to your new free service. Then once they optin to your list you can sell to them.