email marketing

I wonder if I could get some advice. I am implimenting a charity email marketing campaign to healthcare professionals (nurses, doctors, medical students etc) and wanted to check that this professional audience are classed as business contacts and that we can email them without the need for any opt ins (just ability to opt out). All of the email addresses we currently hold have been obtained through discussions with the charity although many of them are what could be classed as 'personal' email accounts such as hotmail or googlemail.

Any advice would be welcomed.

Thanks,
Liz

Hi Liz

First of all whether an email address is deeemed as a business contact or an ordinary consumer has nothing to do with whether it is a Hotmail account or a business email address. It depends on the circumstances under which the address was obtained.

Unfortunately I cannot answer your question until. I have a better understanding of how the list was obtained i.e. what were the circumstances - was it bought or harvested for example? Did the people on the list sign up for something? If so what and what was the permission statement or privacy policy at the time of collection?

If you would like some advice on this matter go to our site and drop me a line. http://alchemyworx.com/getintouch.php with your contact details - I will respond asap

Dela

Thanks Dela,

The addresses were obtained through different channels - past members, online registrations, attendees of conferences. They were not told thattheir email address would be used for marketing purposes but they have been gathered as a result of a business relationship. What does that mean for us?

Many thanks,Liz

Liz, generally speaking if you have found these addresses through work related channels and they were printed on business cards, Brochures, special offers etc... then those are fair game for an initial introductory mailing to those folks, just ensure you start out from the start using an email provider like constantContact to give people a one click removal option.

Be sure to ask for nothing, but rather give as much information and value as you possibly can in return for these peoples attention and time. If the people you are mailing to can genuinely benefit from reading what you have to say. then you are obligated to do your best in presenting it to them.

Scraping and buying lists is a quick route to being labeled spammer. Use good judgement, be honest and deliver 200% of value and things will work out fine.

Dear Liz,

Your effort is really a good one. These Health care professionals can be campaigned for charity email marketing. It's nothing to worry whether it is their Personal ID or a Business ID, the content should reach the exact person.You can continue with those ID's that you have collected already and campaign them.

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Anderson

Viral Marketing

 Sound advice.

Normally I'd always opt for permission based email marketing, but seeing as these were gathered professionally and its for charity I'm sure you'll be fine. You have to be absolutely certain these people are potentially interested in your email. It all depends on the delivery though....

 Like Dan says, make it as easy as possible to opt out of further email communications. Make it clear this will be a one off unless they are interested in more information.

Don't push any blatant advertising messages. Your taking some of their time, give them something of value to them in return.

If a lot of these email addresses are Hotmail and Gmail based you need to think carefully about the title as well. Chances are, you'll end up in their spam filter. A title written completely in caps to draw attention will be read as 'SPAM', so try and show them this is not spam and who it is actually from.

Hope that helps..