Four Rules of Permission Marketing

From AllBusiness.com

Email marketing is one of the most effective weapons in a small business owner's arsenal. It allows you to market to large numbers of potential customers for a fraction of the cost of traditional direct mail. But there's a fine line between sending effective email messages and spamming your client base.

Whether you buy or rent an email list or compile your own, keep these four points in mind when developing your opt-in strategy:

• Make sure the names on your list actually belong there. Don’t add names of people who haven’t agreed to receive messages from you. Sending unsolicited email — known as spam — can create a negative impression of your company. It can even get you shut down by your ISP.
• Let your customers decide which format of your promotional mailings they'll receive. Not everyone has an email account that can process HTML and rich-text messages, and some people prefer plain text.

• Give customers a chance to opt out of future mailings. Customers come and go, so don’t be alarmed when someone wants to be dropped from an email list.
• If you’re harvesting names from your Web site for future mailings, give fair notice to your visitors. Reassure your customers that their personal information is safe, and that you won't sell or distribute it. Develop a privacy policy, post it prominently on the site and stick to it.

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