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How do you bulk email potential clients?

by Derek_Thomas
4 replies
This may be a newbie question, but I'd like to hear some "best practices" regarding bulk emailing potential offline clients. I have compiled a rather large list of business emails. Should I email one at a time? Should I use some form of autoresponder to broadcast one message to all, or is that the very definition of spam? Any advice?

Thanks,
Derek
#bulk #clients #email #potential
  • Profile picture of the author somacorellc
    What I'd suggest is coming up with a sort of form template that you can use while still modifying each one to fit your needs. Then, email out individually.

    Some business clients may have a great website in spot #1, some may not. Some people might have an awesome Facebook page but no website. If you're going to bulk email it's imperative that your potential clients universally need what you're selling.

    Here is a template that I'm using at the moment, and am customizing for each client:

    Hi, my name is Mike Heath and I own my own internet marketing agency here in Columbia, SC. I work with small businesses in South Carolina, helping increase revenue and attract more customers. I'm writing today because I saw your ad in the newspaper, and noticed your awesome Facebook page, but I couldn't find a website for your business.

    I'd really like to sit down with you and talk about how a website and email marketing could help increase your profits, especially with the holidays coming up! I'll give you a call in a couple days to follow up and schedule a meeting if we haven't spoken by then.

    Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you!
    Mike

    [my signature stuff]

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    Web Design Columbia SC
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    • Profile picture of the author Derek_Thomas
      Originally Posted by somacorellc View Post

      What I'd suggest is coming up with a sort of form template that you can use while still modifying each one to fit your needs. Then, email out individually.

      Some business clients may have a great website in spot #1, some may not. Some people might have an awesome Facebook page but no website. If you're going to bulk email it's imperative that your potential clients universally need what you're selling.

      Here is a template that I'm using at the moment, and am customizing for each client:

      Hi, my name is Mike Heath and I own my own internet marketing agency here in Columbia, SC. I work with small businesses in South Carolina, helping increase revenue and attract more customers. I'm writing today because I saw your ad in the newspaper, and noticed your awesome Facebook page, but I couldn't find a website for your business.

      I'd really like to sit down with you and talk about how a website and email marketing could help increase your profits, especially with the holidays coming up! I'll give you a call in a couple days to follow up and schedule a meeting if we haven't spoken by then.

      Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you!
      Mike

      [my signature stuff]

      ---------------
      Very helpful thank you!!

      Derek
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  • Profile picture of the author Jay Rhome
    The issue is not if your mail is good or not here, the issue is how to legitimately prospect withOUT being labeled a spammer.

    Below I've put the main meat of the SPAM Act, but if you respect it doesn’t prevent people getting that ONE TIME mail from clicking the spam button instead of deleting it. Compound that by a few prospectors using the same domain email to send these, at 100 each a day, and those complaints can get numerous in a hurry.


    Here is the main meat of the CAN-SPAM Act



    The law makes no exception for business-to-business email.

    Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000, so non-compliance can be costly. But following the law isn’t complicated. Here’s a rundown of CAN-SPAM’s main requirements:
    1. Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
    2. Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.
    3. Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement.
    4. Tell recipients where you’re located. Your message must include your valid physical postal address. This can be your current street address, a post office box you’ve registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations.
    5. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Craft the notice in a way that’s easy for an ordinary person to recognize, read, and understand. Creative use of type size, color, and location can improve clarity. Give a return email address or another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice to you. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you. Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests.
    6. Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request. Once people have told you they don’t want to receive more messages from you, you can’t sell or transfer their email addresses, even in the form of a mailing list. The only exception is that you may transfer the addresses to a company you’ve hired to help you comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.
    7. Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. The law makes clear that even if you hire another company to handle your email marketing, you can’t contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law. Both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message may be held legally responsible.
    If the message contains only commercial content, its primary purpose is commercial and it must comply with the requirements of CAM-SPAM. If it contains only transactional or relationship content, its primary purpose is transactional or relationship. In that case, it may not contain false or misleading routing information, but is otherwise exempt from most provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act.
    So, it's clear that we CAN send unsolicited email yet respect all these terms.

    But I know GoDaddy likes to freeze your sites at the slightest complaints and charge $200 to "defreeze" them.

    And I don't know what are the policies for Hostgator and other common hosting companies. Well Hostgator for example are clear about certain limits (like the hourly number of emails sent) but then seem to label "any unsolicited email" as spam while having a link to the CAN-SPAN Act. Totally confusing.

    It kind of suck that a legitimate business prospecting tool can incur unwarranted penalties.

    BTW the info is very hard to get. My google search gave my thread as the #1 spot... and most other results talk about spam complains from subscribers, or how to prevent spam.
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    • Profile picture of the author Derek_Thomas
      Originally Posted by Jay Rhome View Post

      The issue is not if your mail is good or not here, the issue is how to legitimately prospect withOUT being labeled a spammer.

      Below I've put the main meat of the SPAM Act, but if you respect it doesn't prevent people getting that ONE TIME mail from clicking the spam button instead of deleting it. Compound that by a few prospectors using the same domain email to send these, at 100 each a day, and those complaints can get numerous in a hurry.

      ...

      So, it's clear that we CAN send unsolicited email yet respect all these terms.

      But I know GoDaddy likes to freeze your sites at the slightest complaints and charge $200 to "defreeze" them.

      And I don't know what are the policies for Hostgator and other common hosting companies. Well Hostgator for example are clear about certain limits (like the hourly number of emails sent) but then seem to label "any unsolicited email" as spam while having a link to the CAN-SPAN Act. Totally confusing.

      It kind of suck that a legitimate business prospecting tool can incur unwarranted penalties.

      BTW the info is very hard to get. My google search gave my thread as the #1 spot... and most other results talk about spam complains from subscribers, or how to prevent spam.
      Also very helpful. It's good to see all that in one place. Thanks again.

      Derek
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      Thousands of happy Warriors agree...
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