Would I be spamming?

Status
Not open for further replies.
C

ciar4n

New Member
Hello all..

I'd greatly appreciate any advice or views ye might have on this.

The story is... i've developed a classified ads type site and would like to do some email marketing to get it on its feet, but at the same time i really dont wanna over step the mark to the point of spamming. My intention was to email all potential cleints under each category of my site (covers all the categories you'd expect from such a site).

Here's the thing... from carzone.ie alone i've come up with 1500 email addresses.. if i was to cover all categories of the site in a similar manner i feel i be hitting the 10's of 1000's. I intend to mail each address only once.. simply just informing the recipient of the sites exsistence.. will this be considered spam??

In case your interested the sites Ads - - Trade Ireland (not spamming.. honest:))

Ciarán
 
B

Briask

New Member
Most definitely would be spam.

From A Consumer Guide to Dealing with Unsolicited Direct Marketing - Data Protection Commissioner - Ireland

Electronic mail (i.e. a text message, voice message, sound message, image message, multimedia message or email message) for the purpose of direct marketing cannot be sent to you without your prior consent unless it is from someone with whom you have a current customer relationship.
Click to expand...

Unless you own carzone.ie you do not have a current customer relationship with any of those email addresses
 
mneylon

mneylon

Administrator
Staff member
Spam is lazy.

If you want to market something without spamming there are plenty of ways of doing it.
 
mneylon

mneylon

Administrator
Staff member
If you want to collect email addresses legitimately try to do something different. Run a competition or something
 
C

ciar4n

New Member
Thanks blacknight... i'm gonna have to put a little more thought (and work) into it.

Think i might avoid the whole email marketing area until i get some registered members of my own. :eek:

Great forum btw!)
 
caminowebmaster

caminowebmaster

New Member
Thing with spam is it works. I did it a couple of years ago - 1 mail only - sending from the uk to uk at the time and the guidelines there at that time saw this as legitimate marketing.

In Ireland your ISP will pick it up.
 
Anouilh

Anouilh

New Member
I think this question could refer to the age group you are targeting. Some people like very much to be kept up to date. Others (and they are often older, on average) have very little interest in reading the contents of their in-boxes, even when they are from people they know well. This is not meant to be an ageist comment, BTW (I'ts Anti-Ageism Week at the moment). It's just that society has become much more extrovert in the past twenty years and tactics that would be considered rude or intrusive in the past seem to be the norm now.
 
mneylon

mneylon

Administrator
Staff member
Anouilh said:
I think this question could refer to the age group you are targeting. Some people like very much to be kept up to date. Others (and they are often older, on average) have very little interest in reading the contents of their in-boxes, even when they are from people they know well. This is not meant to be an ageist comment, BTW (I'ts Anti-Ageism Week at the moment). It's just that society has become much more extrovert in the past twenty years and tactics that would be considered rude or intrusive in the past seem to be the norm now.
Click to expand...

So you're trying to excuse spamming scumbags by saying we're all old?
 
S

starfire

New Member
on this subject
I want to market a website to interested people
Do you know where I can buy list of people to e-mail
The niche is cats and or pets

Thanks
 
L

link8r

New Member
Don't people have to sign up before you can e-mail them? Or does that just mean it's unsolicited? If I signed up for a newsletter somewhere and I ended getting an e-mail about cats or pets I'd consider it spam (as I dont have any pets; would love a dog though).
 
S

starfire

New Member
I read about this somewhere
Basically the people in question have singed up to receive information about a certain subject

Like asked "would you like to receive details on cat and dog websites please tick the box"
 
mneylon

mneylon

Administrator
Staff member
The issue arises if you repurpose the email list

Say you get people to signup to your newsletter for a site about topic X and you then reuse the list to promote topic Y
 
A

addoc

New Member
Blacknight. I will hopefully soon be promoting a website. A service for retailers. I really dont want to mess it up. Is sending an actual letter with website details regareded as spam. You were saying earlier in this better ways without spamming other than competitions any other ideas? thanks in advance
 
Byron

Byron

New Member
The legality technically states you can send unsolicited communications to a business, however if they ask you to cease you must and they must have somehow selected to be contacted by their actions. To be honest, I doubt all 1,500 want to hear about your website despite the fact they put their address online. For any people in that list that are sole traders or individuals, you are taking the Data Protection Act(s) head on, which is bound to end in legal action.

Overall, unless they sign up or say "CONTACT ME REGARDING ANYTHING, INCLUDING YOUR OWN WEBSITE", don't email them.
 
C

crazzy_webber

New Member
I read it somewhere, there are ways to avoid being flagged as spam by following some ground rules:

1. Always have unsubscribe option in the footer of email.
2. Include your company details, not only a link to website.

I dont knw how true it is, but if you are still worried - perhaps you can use US based smtp servers or open relays. SPAM is EVIL - DONOT DO IT!
 
Byron

Byron

New Member
That is under US Federal law. In other words, feel free to send to any US based accounts, excluding Irish GMAIL accounts. It is fairly risky, certainly dont use that method on any domains other than .com
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top