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The caller to our offices surprised our salesperson with the question: "Can you guys provide me with a list of 500 million email addresses?"

When you're in the email marketing industry, inquiries from would-be list buyers are, sadly, not uncommon.  "No," came the reply from our salesperson, "that's not our business."  Usually the conversation ends right there.  But our salesperson couldn't let this caller go without satisfying his curiosity:

"What do you need with a list of 500 million email addresses, anyway?"

"Because I need to get this out to EVERYBODY."

The caller went on to explain that he heard somewhere that less than one-tenth of the world's population had an email address.  So he figured if he could find 500 million addresses, that would cover just about...everybody, or at least everybody with an email inbox.  He didn't elaborate on how he planned to reach the other 6 billion people of Earth, but my guess would be that the plan involves lots of airplanes towing lots of banners!

We had a good laugh about the naivete of our caller, who wanted to use email marketing, but clearly has no idea how it works.  He had a ridiculous goal, but he was quite serious about pursuing it and wanted to go through proper, legal channels.  And that started me thinking...

How often do even professional email marketers embark on perfectly legal, but ineffective tactics in order to try--like our caller--to reach as many people as possible, without regard for whether those people want to be reached?  Sure, things like co-registration and list rental are legal, and a business is permitted by law to email its customers (regardless of whether they've opted-in) as long as an opt-out mechanism is provided.  We've had that pointed out by many prospective customers who have questioned our Terms of Service, which are more restrictive than required by law.  But while these tactics don't carry any legal penalties, there are penalties nonetheless, involving cost, complaints, and reputation damage, which is why we require true opt-ins.

Is "legal" really all you want your email marketing to be?  Me, I'd rather be "effective," or "engaging," or better, "profitable."  Don't settle for merely not breaking the law.  Set your sights higher, and grow your list steadily, to include people who truly want to hear from you, instead of looking for the quick fix.  And rather than trying to improve results by mailing EVERYBODY, consider how in the meantime to get the best results out of the list you already have in hand.   Those things, we'd be happy to help you with!

Chris Broshears | Product Development