Sending bulk mail responsibly is really quite a simple concept.

In many countries it's actually illegal to send marketing material via email unless that addressee is either a customer or has specifically subscribed to your mail list.

I am a director of a web design and marketing company and we actually market software that allows our customers to create mail lists and perform bulk mailings. We use a server just for this purpose. All our customers are warned not to spam and only use validated leads.

So here are a few rules if you are thinking of using bulk-mail to market your company, yourself or a product, event or anything else.

1. DON'T buy lists of email addresses. This is what spammers do. You know, those people that drive you nuts trying to improve your sex-life, selling you cheap software, sending you emails in Russian and all those other annoying emails that take up your time and cost you money because you have to process them. So don't be a spammer. If you go down this road, you'll soon be found out. Professional spammers know how to avoid detection, you probably don't. And anyway, just don't go there.

2. DON'T assume that visitors or customers to your website who register also want to be on your mailing list. You can ask them to check a box to subscribe but the default should be "NO".

3. ALWAYS have an authentication procedure (also known as a token) in the subscription process. This works by sending an email with a link back which confirms that you actually want to subscribe using the address you indicated. This stops others subscribing your email, which is another form of spamming.

4. On any email you send via bulk mail, or any mail list, have a link which unsubscribes the email address. If you can't use a link to automate the process, then have an instruction such as send a reply with "unsubscribe" in the subject line.

5. It is polite, and preferable, to offer your subscribers the choice between HTML and plain text emails. In the past, some email client software could not cope with HTML email; this is now rarely the case, but many people prefer to reduce the size of mail in their inbox by only accepting plain text.

6. This may be obvious, but it's worth mentioning; DON'T sell your email list or even give it away. You will almost certainly be breaking your country's Data Protection laws and it is unethical anyway; would you like someone to sell your email address?

7. If you state that you are going to email a subscriber once a week, don't email them daily. Stick to what you promised. There are many lists which will send daily emails, but if you intend to do this, make sure it is clear at the time of subscribing.

Bulk email has a bad reputation, which isn't surprising as it is THE major abuse of the Internet that has created an entire industry to defend against it, like a kind of arms race or a paradigm for evolution. However, bulk email, and mailing lists generally, can be used completely responsibly as a valid and useful marketing tool to boost sales, keep customers informed of special offers and new products, provide up to date news, and many other marketing uses.

If you stick to the rules, you will be a responsible bulk emailer and not a spammer.

Learn more about this author, Ray Cook.
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