Cathie Dodd from Tears Of Joy video did this simple but effective video on list building ethics.

Since our launch, we have encountered many potential spammers who tried their luck at using eConnect Email as their spam tool.  This post is dedicated to talk about these users and how we are very intolerant towards this kind of behavior in eConnect Email.

First of all, let me be very clear here.  eConnect Email is a permission-based email marketing system.  We have checks in place to ensure eConnect Email does not fall prey to spammers who send out spam emails, or as some call them in a less negative way, “unsolicited emails”, although we still prefer to call them spam anyhow – a rose is a rose is a rose.

We tell all our customers that all batch imports of subscriber lists will be manually approved by our delivery team, and we really walk the talk.  We have real humans looking through the lists to spot out any tell-tale signs of unacceptable lists and perform checks on their email practices.  Admittedly, this is a very tedious (and at times inconvenient) process but is a necessary evil in order to ensure that the system is not being abused and that those marketers using eConnect Email who practice permissible email marketing are protected.  This is a very important aspect for us to be able to maintain a high reputation of our service.

That said, we have also encountered users who tried different methods to circumvent the checking process that we have in place.  One prime example is signing up as paid customers and demanding that we approve the lists regardless of the sources, simply on the mere basis that they have already paid up.  Guess what?  That’s not the way we function.  We clearly state in our Terms of Use and our Anti-Spam Policy that we will monitor and stop any suspicious spamming activities.  So it’s just wishful thinking that we will let your lists through as long as you have paid.  Sure, signing up as a paid customer does in itself show a certain level of commitment on the part of the customer that his/her email marketing practices are acceptable by eConnect Email, but there are still many factors in our approval process that will look at the overall picture, rather than just the fact that he/she has paid up.

Now, some would-be customers might start to worry that if their lists do not get approved after they have signed up for our paid plans, they stand to lose their subscription fees.  To these customers, we would like to assure that as long as you have proof that you have obtained your list under acceptable conditions as stated in our policies, chances are your list will get approved.  In any case, we always advise that you test drive eConnect Email first by signing up for a Trial account, importing your lists, and testing out the functions before making the jump.  That way, not only can you be certain that your list has been approved, but you also get to check out the rest of eConnect Email to see if we are a good fit to your email marketing needs.

I’m going to end this post off with an actual case we had with a paid customer whom we found to have uploaded a subscriber list that showed characteristics of a bought, rented or “scraped” list. Instead of offering information on the source of the list, he counter-questioned “But you are not a US-based company, why should you be worried about spam?”

Our reply to this is that regardless of where you may be based, we believe permission-based email marketing is the only really healthy way to run your email marketing campaigns.  This may come across as being a handicap rather than a feature for many marketers who are still clueless about why respect for their subscribers is of utmost importance, but this is one aspect of eConnect Email that we are proud of and will not budge; we would rather have fewer customers than have too many spammers abusing the system.

I don’t know if I should pity Bob Richards, but I guess if you play with fire, you might get burnt.  Anyway, Bob Richards purchased a list from a company called EmailAppenders and paid some $14,000… Yes, you see that right: $14,000 for 100,000 supposedly targeted email addresses.

The story goes that after being pleased with himself for getting such a good list, cleaning it up and doing the sending, he got 85,000 bounces and his server got locked up.  The company that helped him send out his emails got its account canceled, and now Richards believes he has been ripped off and is hell-bent on getting back at EmailAppenders.

Full story here.

Do not, I can’t emphasize this enough, do not ever purchase a list from anyone, even if they claim they have permission for every single email address in the list.  These email addresses are usually taken without the owner’s knowledge or permission.  Yes, the sellers can claim they called the owners and verified the emails, but do you know what they actually asked them?  Do you think they called them and said this:

“Hello Mr. So and So, I’m calling from a company that sells your email address to people who are stupid enough to buy it.  Can you verify if this is your email address so that I can sell it and make money out of it? And yes, your email account will be flooded with spam.”

And do you think the email address owner would say:

1) “Oh yes, that is my email address, please sell it and give me the spam.  Don’t worry, I think my free anti-spam software can block those spam emails.”

or

2) “How the %#%* did you get that email address?  If you use it, I’m going to sue you!”

Anyone want to make a guess?

I just can’t think of anyone in the right state of mind who would give you his email address so you could profit from it.

Would you?

Loren McDonald posted an article at Deliverability.com, about lessons we can learn from an unsolicited B2B email she received.  (The article is available at http://blog.deliverability.com/2008/07/lessons-from-an.html).  She listed some obvious facts that many marketers or salespersons either forget about, or simply choose to ignore.

Her point 4.

No Unsubscribe – The email, which was “sent” from a salesperson “Lori M….”, did not include any instructions or means to unsubscribe.  Perhaps she thought this was a “1 to 1″ email and didn’t require an unsubscribe mechanism or she was just a salesperson that ran amok without involving marketing.  The fact that this email was professionally designed though suggests she was not a lone gunman.  What boggles the mind is how does a legit company send out a broadcast email in the year 2008 without an unsubscribe mechanism?

This is something that will never happen at eConnect Email, because in the first place, we require all our customers to practice permission-based email marketing.

Reading the article reminded me of an upcoming conference that we were asked to sponsor in return for free booth space.  In the sponsor brochure, it was explicitly stated that all sponsors would get the contact information of the conference participants.  Well, that’s nice but no thanks.

Recently, we were invited by a big organization to hop over and present our email marketing software to them.  Being a small or even tiny company by comparison, we were naturally honored.

So Johnny and I got to work and prepared our presentation.  On the big day, things went well and we thought we were a shoo-in for the job until The Boss popped this question:

“How do you handle unsubscribe requests?”

With pride on our faces, we told them all about our one-click unsubscribe policy.  (We believe that subscribers should be able to unsubscribe easily from any newsletter, and we require our clients to feature an unsubscribe link in all their campaigns.)

What we heard next left us stunned in disbelief. Here’s an excerpt of the conversation, or at least, what we remember of it:

The Boss
“Oh, one-click unsubscribe?  We don’t want that, we want the unsubscribe function to be as difficult as possible.”

The Stunned Guys (of course, Johnny and me)
“But why do you want to keep subscribers who are no longer interested in hearing from you?”

The Boss (brimming with the confidence of someone who is always right)
“This is marketing.  You shove them with your marketing information whether they like it or not, and eventually they might find something that they like.”

Well, she’ll have to find herself another partner, because she definitely won’t be using our system to carry out her plans for world domination.

The saddest thing is, we’ve been their customers for years (and still are), but we’re glad we’ve never subscribed to their newsletters or any of their campaigns.