Email marketing - an ethical question
A client recently approached me with an email list he had purchased with about 80,000 emails of local businesses.
He owns a wine company and wanted to send out a one time offer for a premium European wine at 60% discount.
I discussed it with him and decided to take what turns out to be a rather big risk by agreeing to send out his offer to his list.
We stressed it was a one time mailing and put an unsubscribe link clearly at the bottom.
I sent out a test mailing of 4000 to see the response. We got several orders for his wine... but we also got one spam complaint via my hosting company (I'm using my own email software hosted on my server).
My hosting company say they will terminate my account if they get a second spam complaint.
So, that's the end of that. Or is it?
Is there any ethical way to send out an offer like this on a strictly one time basis? For the client, the response is good enough to allow him to get several valuable new customers for his wine (and they are repeat buyers).
But how to do it? Is it possible?
He owns a wine company and wanted to send out a one time offer for a premium European wine at 60% discount.
I discussed it with him and decided to take what turns out to be a rather big risk by agreeing to send out his offer to his list.
We stressed it was a one time mailing and put an unsubscribe link clearly at the bottom.
I sent out a test mailing of 4000 to see the response. We got several orders for his wine... but we also got one spam complaint via my hosting company (I'm using my own email software hosted on my server).
My hosting company say they will terminate my account if they get a second spam complaint.
So, that's the end of that. Or is it?
Is there any ethical way to send out an offer like this on a strictly one time basis? For the client, the response is good enough to allow him to get several valuable new customers for his wine (and they are repeat buyers).
But how to do it? Is it possible?
Stop by Paul's Pub - my little hangout on Facebook.