Avoid e-spamming by using the list
in your own back yard.

By Grant A. Johnson, Johnson Direct

"There are ways to protect yourself from "e-spamming"
when you buy and use e-mail lists. Three tips follow. However, the safest e-mail campaign could begin with
the e-mail list just waiting to be harvested from your very own back yard. Read on to learn more."

Pending legislation threatens commercial use of e-mail marketing to businesses and consumers.

The DMA (Direct Marketing Association) proposes self-imposed regulation for the direct marketing community. However, self-imposed regulation requires a high level of responsibility on the part of the marketer.

The measures you can take to protect recipients' privacy include:

1. Clearly identify the e-mail solicitation as such and disclose the your company's identity.
2. An opt-out mechanism is necessary, providing the recipient with a way to notify the marketer that they do not wish to receive future online solicitations.
3. In addition, marketers should notify recipients if their e-mail address is on a list that is available for rental, sale or exchange for online solicitation purposes. If this is the case, the marketer should offer an opt-out mechanism to the recipient for list removal.
   All of these privacy and spamming issues are null and void, however, if you develop your own e-mail database of qualified prospects and customers.

A few examples of how you can compile e-mail and other data from defined audiences:

• Start with existing customers, survey for new information, permission to e-mail
• Collect e-mail addresses and other data on your Web site with polls, incentive offers and other techniques
• Post your polls, incentive offers and other electronic data collection methods on "partner" sites that target the same market, such as suppliers and associations
• Use traditional direct response methods such as a reply card

Whether the list is researched and developed in-house, or contracted out to a professional service, the data collected is pure, clean and updated.

When harvested from scratch for your company's use, you are assured that the individuals listed are qualified buyers and influencers of your products and services. As such, you will be in a position to ask for referrals from this highly targeted group. In addition, your database will be the foundation for building a long-term, profitable relationship with each individual.

Johnson reminds his clients not to forget to consider employees, shareholders, suppliers and potentially past customers as viable recipients of your e-mail marketing efforts.

With this targeted, qualified database in place, your business is ready to...MERGE INTO THE FAST LANE OF E-MAIL MARKETING.

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