OK, we all know what permission is (I hope), thank you Mr. Godin. However, although every decent email marketer knows that email marketing starts with the permission of the recipient, I still very often talk with publishers and advertisers that send their emails to every list or email address they can get their hands on (I have to say I’m talking Europe but there is legislation here too!).
Sometimes these lists are even their property but strictly speaking they can not use them for email marketing purposes. If they do, they don’t only break the law, they also risk getting blacklisted, receiving complaints, harming their brand reputation etc. Furthermore: the return of email campaigns on these lists will be low.
A good example is a company I know that recently participated at a trade show and organized a competition whereby people that gave their business card could win a prize. Not a bad idea (although a bit ‘been there, done that’) but there was one problem: no one even thought of asking the tradeshow visitors that left their business cards if these people wanted to be added to the email list of the company.