Is this Spam? [experienced email marketers chime in please]

[esh]

Hi,

I have a quick question. I am in process of experimenting sending mass emails. Before i ask my question, let me say this. I took James Martell's Backlink workshop. In that he preaches contacting link partners from the whois database information, and mailing them individually asking to syndicate contents on their site provided by you which carries links pointing back to your site. He calls this method PAD technique. I know many of you are aware of this one. If not you can read from his ebook, just google for it.

Now, with the magic of autoresponders, is sending a bulk mail a spam? I know i have to ask that to james martell and oh yeah! in that course he clearly states that unsolicited one-on-one mailing is not a spam. But he did not shed light on the bulk mailing. Lets say i have collected some 1000 contacts(Email, firstname, their site's google PR) for my niche. Instead of contacting them one-on-one, why not import those into an autoresponder and bulk mail them, they wont know it anyway! Which is my arguement. Also when they hit reply to the email, i have a system to catch that and transfer it to my email address. Also i use an hosting account especially for this experiment with a pen name and an alternate paypal, so no foot mark left to trace me back!

I am just about to begin this, but before i want to open a healthy discussion here.

If you have anything to say please reply in detail. Just dont say "hey that's a spam" cause it doesn't help Since we all know that sending bulk unsolicited mails is spam, atleast that's what the dictionary says!

Anyone please reply me!

Best,
Esh

[LMC]

esh,

Many will say it is SPAM but it is not:

The laws of this are governed by the CAN-SPAM act

The bill permits e-mail marketers to send unsolicited commercial e-mail as long as it adheres to 3 basic types of compliance defined in the CAN-SPAM Act: unsubscribe, content and sending behavior compliance.

Read the bill or reference this wikipedia on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003

to understand the basic types o compliance

[Harry Behrens]

Many receivers will treat it as spam... simply because what you're talking about doing necessarily involves "genericizing" the email.

It's not the same to get an email that reads:

"Dear David, I saw your website on natural acne solutions, it so happens that I follow much the same philosophies as you regarding natural and holistic medicine! Here's an article I think might compliment your piece on water and its importance for the human body."

as one that reads:

"Dear webmaster, your skin care website is high quality and well-written. I am a writer and I would like to offer you some of my services for your content. I have articles on acne, health, skin care, makeup, and weight loss. If you're interested please get back to me at email@email.com."

The first one **might** get a favorable response maybe (it's still a long shot), but the second one is almost for sure going to make anybody reach for the SPAM button.

Note that pulling off the first type of email for any length of list is an extreme effort, which is why many people go the route of posting their articles on article distribution websites.

[Istvan Horvath]

Originally Posted by esh

Instead of contacting them one-on-one, why not import those into an autoresponder and bulk mail them, they wont know it anyway!

1. Most autoresponders forbid this kind of import - they require that you prove these addresses indeed subscribed to your opt-in list.
2. The autoresponder co. will know it

[LMC]

Originally Posted by The Pension Guy

1. Most autoresponders forbid this kind of import - they require that you prove these addresses indeed subscribed to your opt-in list.
2. The autoresponder co. will know it

This is why you use your own STMP server relays to send out the mail, and use a system like SendBlaster to send the emails...

Now you have no regulations from autoresponder companies because you are running your own.

[radhika]

FIRST:
I don't like this PAD method. Like chane said above there are more simpler and cost/time effective methods like article marketing, buying text links, blog postings, social media etc. So why waste time if you are not sure of results? (I delete all my email starting with - "I visted your web site ... ")

SECOND:
The CAN-SPAM Act: Requirements for Commercial Emailers

Though opt-in is not an essential step as stated above. What you are sending is commercial email. There is no relationship or opt-in existed between you and the receiver. So you need to be compliant with above rules.

.

[Martin Luxton]

The other thing to bear in mind is how the recipients regard it.

If a few of them treat it as spam and complain you could be in trouble. Some registrars and hosting companies shut you down first and ask questions later.

These people you intend to contact are in your niche and they might see a spam complaint against you as a good way of eliminating a competitor.

Martin