Opt In Email Marketing Versus Spam
Opt in email marketing and unsolicited email marketing (better known as spam) are the two basic ways of marketing with email, broadly speaking. On the one hand you have people who agree to receive the emails, and on the other hand you have people who do not agree to receive the emails. The former are happy about receiving the emails they have opted in to, and the latter are usually furious at having their inboxes clogged up with offers of everything ranging from dieting products to sexual enhancement.
There are also two levels of work involved with each type of marketing. With opt in email marketing you usually have to work quite hard to persuade people to opt in to your list, from where you can then send them emails. With spam you simply gather as many emails as you can find from wherever you can find them and send them messages as often as you choose, and on whatever subject you choose.
When you have the permission of the people on your list of email addresses to send them messages, you have to be careful not to annoy them too much. It is usual to send out messages at intervals of one or two per week or one or two per month.If you send out a message every day, that might also work fine if it’s a useful message, such as a daily tip or quote. You can include the occasional recommendation in your messages as well and in this way earn a regular income from the people who have opted to receive your emails.
When you don’t bother to gain the permission of those who will receive your messages, you can do what you want. You can build an enormous list of several million in no time flat, as opposed to taking a a month or two, for example, to build a tightly focused and targeted list of a few thousand. Yes, it can sound tempting to go the spam route, but there are a few problems inherent in the strategy.
For one, it’s illegal. People have been sent to prison for sending out unsolicited emails in bulk. You will be hated by the entire Internet community and considered no better than pond life – worse even. Does it make anyone a good living? Undoubtedly it does, but at a tremendous cost – for both the perpetrator and the receiver. Simply put, it just isn’t worth it.
Opt in email marketing can be extremely lucrative and more than worth the relatively small effort required. Properly set up and managed, a list built on permission based email marketing will provide a very healthy income for life. With opt in email marketing you won’t have to keep looking over your shoulder for the authorities catching up with you either.
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