PeopleareParked.com

I got an email the other day from an address I didn’t know, but opened it anyhow, since it didn’t look like SPAM. Turns out it was from a friend who was sending a newsletter to multiple recipients about her new business. You could tell she put some good effort into the design and content of it, but addressed it to multiple recipients with everyone’s address showing. Talk about opening up a can of SPAM!

Like I said, she’s a good friend, so I chalked it up to inexperience, but she got a reply from one angry person about taking her off the email list and using Bcc in emails. This woman had some valid complaints, but was really nasty about it.

Here are some things I’ve learned about multiple recipient emails that might help other people and avoid nasty replies.

1. If you must send an email to multiple recipients, make sure you have their permission to receive these from you. Most newsletters have sign-ups or opt-in features.
2. Have an opt-out feature, where recipients can email you to remove them from your list.
3. Always use Bcc, instead of Cc or To. This way, no one can see each other’s email addresses, even if you think they are all friends.
4. Many Internet Service Providers (ISP’s), like Comcast and Verizon, will see you as a spammer if multiple emails are being sent out from the same address. If they do, they will block your address from sending to any of their accounts. This is a real pain to recover from and be taken off their blacklist.
5. If it’s a once in awhile email, you might get away with multiple recipients. We all get jokes etc. from well-meaning friends, but a business sending frequent newsletter emails is taking a chance.
6. If you reply to an email with multiple recipients, don’t use “reply all”, as I don’t want to hear from people I don’t know. I may have known the original sender, but not all the others. Many times, it’s a personal note anyhow.
7. Instead of mass emailings, use a newsletter service, like Constant Contact. They are very serious about not allowing SPAM and as a result respected more by ISP’s. It’s a great program with newsletter templates, mailing lists, opt-in and opt-out features, but does have a cost. It used to be free for up to 50 recipients, but they now charge a nominal fee, which might be worth it for businesses.

Hope that helps shed some light on the subject.  Keep your emails friendly!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 7:55 pm and is filed under Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.