It’s personal

Sometimes it just happens. The reasons are numerous (topic for another post). You have unconfirmed email subscribers. Do you remove them? If so you might miss that one contact and opportunity that leads to the big sale, and maybe they did ask (verbally) to be placed on the list at one time. So is it really spam?

Email is personal. Similar to telemarketing it is simply disrespectful and hurts your brand to invade your prospect’s inbox. Remember how much you hate hearing “Is Mr. or Mrs. Smith there?” at dinner time. It violates what’s yours, your time. Ask yourself, “what is my opinion of the companies that send me unwanted email?”

My suggestion is, whittle your list down to known opt-ins, write an opt-in policy and stick to it. It is a privilege to use my inbox, my time, you better treat it as such or I will ignore your message and associate your brand with the negative behavior.

There is an observed best practice – think of an example when you have been spammed by a major brand, I couldn’t. The best practice is – inbox’s are not how you introduce a quality product, they are how you maintain a relationship.

Always get an opt-in.