Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Janet,
I would not advise to bulk emails.I think you should develop a eCRM strategy.Target customers that valuable to your business, personalize these communications and finally optmize this relationship. Don't damage the brand, strength the brand. For alot of businesses their main focus is impressions to sale.This is important but in the long run over exposure is bad for the brand.

Never hesitate to contact your customers using any and every method available.

Spam is determined not by the delivery vehicle of a message, but by the content of that message.

You wouldn't ask this question within the context of sending them a letter, which you created using a database and Word Mail Merge.

If you have the stomach for a little too much techie orientation, which can be ignored by and large (and for which the company provides good support), use Gammadyne's mail client . . . about 150 US with free updates and so on. I find it the best, but as I say it requires that you slog through too much technical stuff: good product terrible market focus.

Talk to your customers. They want to hear from you.

Definitely contact them.

You would be wasting a great opportunity. The key is to have a good reason to contact them. Right now, all you know is their e-mail address. With the right offer (newsletter, discount etc) you can learn more information about them and be able to target your marketing efforts.

Yes, definitely need an opt out. That's part of the CAN-SPAM laws, but some companies are unnecessarily frightened by those laws. They do nothing and reap no rewards.

Michael

Contact details of previous customers are valuable and should be used without delay. To effectively complete the job You may need a help of programmer who can do the following tasks:
1. Extract details such as name, the period you served your past customers, pruducts they were offered etc from your database.
2. Include the extracted details in the emails to the customers so they may not feel that the email is a kind of bulk email.
3. Definitely you need to avoid starting emails such as "Hello, " and "Sir,". Instead make sure your email starts with salutation such as " Dear name,", so the email will not be interpreted as bulk email and may catch the eyes of your target.

Best of luck!!!!

I must say I am really surprised at the answers you have received so far, in support of e-mailing your customers, no questions asked.

Because of the way you asked the question, I am guessing when you collected customer e-mail addresses in the first place that you did not explicitly state you might be contacting them in the future (and giving them a chance to opt out). You should clean this up for any new customers right away, and while you are at it also include a privacy statement (e-mails won't be shared with third parties, etc etc).

Then, the FIRST e-mail I would send to the current batch would be something on the order of "Glad to have you on board as a customer...during registration you gave us your e-mail address...we would like to communicate with you periodically about new features, offers etc etc...would that be OK with you?"

Then, for those that "opt in" I would use all the other great suggestions above.

Spam is defined not by content, but by permission.

Janet:

I did see the statement on your site. To be clear, I wasn't certain whether it was there from day one, so that's why I made my comments.

When you have the time you might want to consider "beefing" the statement up a little. You can look anywhere on the Web for ideas, but for grins I looked at a quasi-competitor of yours as an example.

"Contacting You for Offers and Promotions: You agree, in consideration for the use of the Services provided by Photobucket.com, to allow Photobucket.com to use your personal information to send you marketing and promotional materials. Photobucket.com may also send you marketing and promotional materials that promote third party products. Photobucket.com will not rent or sell your personal information for use by third parties. These materials may include, but are not limited to: newsletters providing you with additional information on how to use the Services, and promotional offers for goods and services from Photobucket.com or third parties."

By the way, they (and most others) provide this contact thru a link named "Privacy Policy" so they don't clutter up the regi form.

I'm not saying you need to be this verbose, but this is an example of how you cover both elements - not sharing with third parties, and contacting them in the future about products, etc.

By the way, now that I've looked more in depth at your site, I add to what a few others have said: what a great business idea! I hope you have continued success with it. The continued growth of the online classified market can only mean good news for you.

Hello Janet,

You've received some great advice above in many different forms. But most of all I like Norquest and Randall's answer.


YOU ALWAYS NEED:

You always need an opt out via email but not necessary by snail mail.

You always need a "Customer share your true feelings box".

You always need a handwritten Thank You note with genuine words of appreciation because the customer(s) have faith in doing business with you.

CUSTOMERS ARE TOO VALUABLE!
Customers are too important to treat them with blast unless you want to risk the personal touch great customer service lends to the relationship. There is only one reason business exist and that's for the purpose of taking care of a customer.

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT!!!
Would you contact someone you love? Sure you would and like wise you should contact your customer because you love them. And not because you love the money they bring you either but because of the relationship.


KEEP THE RELATIONSHIP FIRST & REINFORCE ONLY WITH A CONCERNED CONSTANT CONTACT.
Whatever you do, do it decently and in order.


LOVE-EM INTO LONG TERM LIFE TIME *CUSTOMERSHIP
Customers love to be contacted but more than anything they love genuine relationship. They love knowing you're concerned. They love the thoughts that cause them to feel loved and they love to think that their so lovely and that's why you're reaching out to them. Make them feel loved and treat them lovely and you've got the perfect relationship for long term Life Time Customers.

EVANGELIZE THE CUSTOMER WITH PASSION!

yES Love them forever...

LOVE THEM...LET ME COUNT THE WAYS!
Love them by Thank You Notes,
Love them by email,
Love them by phone calls,
Love them by snail mail,
Love them during their birthdays,
Love them during their holidays,
Love them by their Anniversary day with you,
Love them by accident,
and most of all...Love them on purpose.

REINFORCING LOVE...
Whenever you're contacting a customer you're only reinforcing how much you love them and if WE can't treat the customer with L-O-V-E we all need to just GET OUT OF BUSINESS NOW!!!

DON'T BREAK THE CUSTOMERS HEART
Every time a customer is mis-handled, mis-treated or mis-directed we all suffer because we bruise the customer in their heart and hearts carry hurts. And hurts don't disappear easily. They seem to appear and reappear over and over again. The customer with the broken heart eventually becomes like the person with the broken heart hurt by relationship after relationship...They become skeptical and lose faith that anyone can really, seriously, genuinely lOVE THEM.

So Love them with PASSION and NEVER STOP!

Is there anything I can do for you?

Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE (Customer Passion Evangelist)

C-reating P-assionate E-xperiences

Why not fix an error in your process? Integrate a sign up process into your website. If you look at www.reginaDOC.com, you'll see I set up an area where folks can 'sign up' for email messages. It's all permission based.

If I wantd to, I can make a simple change, and add additional lists. This would effectively seperate folks by interest (with each list representing a different area of interest..like Chines food, Pizza and beer). You could easily do the same.

Seperating by interest brings focus to your list. Past customers could become past customers interested in updates...and so on.