Hi Guys & Gals,

Our company utilizes a program that we have written to do very low volume, highly targeted email marketing. We have automated much of the program to make it easy to find the correct email address to send our marketing to, but much of it is also done manually.

For example, we load up a list of websites that we want to target into our database and then one of our sales reps will sit down and run the program. The program is set up to look for specific email addresses (ie. webmaster@ or Info@) but will also list all the email addresses that it finds on a particular website. It also brings up the actual website itself in a window so that the rep can look to see who belongs to that email address (ie. we will look at the contacts page and read who is the "webmaster" or "CTO" and their corresponding email address). If the program does not find an email address that it is satisfied with, it will wait until the sales rep manually chooses one or two email addresses that he/she believes is the correct one to send our marketing to.

I am pretty certain that by manually picking email addresses this falls out of the relm of harvesting "through automated means", but since our program, if it finds an address that it likes, will go ahead and send to that address and continue on to the next website, this, I guess, could fall under that context if taken to the extreme.

What is silly is that we could simply take the "auto-selection" part out of the program and require our reps to make a selection for EVERY website, but this will slow things down (in fact, we just recently added the "auto-select and continue" part to the program to speed things up...)

I guess another definition that is not really clear is: what is a "website user"? Does that include employees of the company that runs the website? I would think that any email addresses that the company specifically make available on their website for the purposes of contacting them (even if they claim "it's not to spam us!") would fall outside the definition of "website user".

I would like to hear some discussions about this.

Thanks a bunch!
Randy

PS. I am glad you guys thoroughly trounced the NASR guy - as a longtime Internet professional, it was very clear from the beginning that he is a total and complete fraud.

PPS. We are difinitely going to add our physical address to our emails and "This is an email solicitaion" to all our emails... It is unfortunate that we have to do this since we personalize our emails and they are so targeted and contain specific, relevant, and timely information about the recipient's website, and by putting this additional information in the email it makes it look less like a "personal email" from one of our sales reps and more like a spam. We provide a toll-free number where they can call and actually talk to the actual rep that sent the message... I dunno. I guess we'll just have to try and word it as carefully as possible.

So this is why, when I create a new email address for a user on site who does not wish to display their own. . I get a few emails during the week.

If someone does not ask for it . . Then do not send it.

__________________
These site are for sale. Restored Classics - car directory - Latest ads

Randy, you might want to take a look at CANSPAM Act of 2003, or read some of the posts in this area about it. We recently did an article on CANSPAM, and what you are talking about is harvesting email addresses through an automated means. It doesn't matter if you have an attendant or not. That attendent still starts a program and watches, then selects addresses they feel relevant or whatever. The problem is the software. It is automation, bottom line. So in my humble opinion, it WILL fall under the CANSPAM Act's harvesting rules.

You can read our article on CANSPAM at Canspam Act of 2003

__________________
SCGP Reviews always appreciated ) SCGP Webmaster Resource Area

You would have to be seriously targetted to even get my attention if you wrote to any of my sites using such a technique. I have software which deletes hundreds of such emails daily. Also, I would say that, if I were to bother reading an email sent in such a way, I would have a much lower opinion of the senders business, and would be very, very unlikely to do any business with them. Quite aside from any histrionics about whether spam is the spawn of the devil or not, and on a purely business level, this kind of marketing smacks of desperation, and leaves a negative impression on anyone who bothers to read it.

Were you to write articles somewhere (like this site), and mention what you did, I would be MUCH more inclined to use your services - whatever they are. The fact that you could write interesting articles would give a much more positive impression of your business.

You may believe that you can contact more people using your method. I would agree, you can. But using the suggested method, or something similar, you will have a lot more people actually READING your message, rather than groaning and pressing delete.

I have no idea what CANSPAM is - but I believe that you will not stop spam by legislation in individual countries. But it will stop when people realise that there is a more efficient way to get their message across.

Finally, I cannot see a website in your signature...

__________________
Pete Clark
Sunny Southern Spain - http://hotcosta.com/Andalucia.Spain

I'm seconding Tubby's succinctly stated, "If I didn't request it, don't send it," approach. There is no "good" spam. I freely register on many websites and even request ongoing newsletters, etc. Sometimes, I even follow down recommended products and services mentioned in those newsletters. As a policy, I never order anything that comes in as spam.

No one whom I know is willing to be a target. There is no such thing as targeted marketing. It's all abuse of a non-voluntary victim.

__________________
LdyGuique