| We chose this subject for our first "in-house" article because bulk email marketing can be the one thing that instantly makes or breaks your business. There's alot of misconceptions out there about bulk email marketing and we want all of our clients and visitors to be aware and beware of them.
First, the definition of bulk email marketing varies depending on who you ask. Some people refer to it as mass marketing, direct marketing, or opt-in marketing of a product or service to 2 or more people simultaneously via their email address. People who prefer that definition are usually the senders of the email. Others refer to bulk email marketing as SPAM. Those people are usually the recipients of bulk email marketing.
SPAM has grown to be the universal term to describe any unwanted, unethical, or unproductive activity performed on the Internet. In the case of bulk email marketing, SPAM is any unsolicited commercial or junk email.
Commercial email does have its benefits for both businesses and consumers. However, many individuals and companies have abused the technology of the Internet so much that almost all commercial email is referred to as SPAM, whether it meets the actual definition or not. Because of that, bulk email marketing can be very dangerous for your business.
Getting labeled as a "SPAMMER" can get your business in a whole lot of trouble. It can get all of your company's email addresses blocked from sending any email of any kind to entire email networks (AOL, MSN, YAHOO, etc.). It can get your site blocked by those networks as well. It can get your site banned from the search engines. Finally, it can get your site kicked off of your host's servers.
All it takes for any of those possibilities to happen is a small number of vocal people to complain about you to their ISP, to the search engines, or to your host and your business will be ruined. SPAM is a big deal to many ISPs and groups because they view it as an unnecessary nuisance to their customers and also as a costly waste of their bandwidth.
With this information in mind you should really think twice before you send out any advertisements using email. There are many companies online that sell lists of thousands of email addresses claiming that the owners have knowingly and freely "opted-in" to receive unsolicited emails. They sell those addresses for pennies each and suggest conversion rates for them as high 30%.
Our advice to you is don't be fooled. The consequences of that kind of bulk email marketing far out way any potential reward. Just don't do it. Everything you may have heard about how effective or beneficial bulk email marketing through bought lists can be is just hype created by rip-off artists who aim to make easy money from the uninformed.
The only legitimate email marketing you can and should be doing is to the people who have bought something directly from you or requested more information directly from you before. That is the only list of people it is safe for you to send marketing email to because you can prove that you had some kind of relationship with them before you sent them your advertisement. If anyone accuses you of anything improper you can just show them an order receipt or an email request to prove your innocence.
There are still limits to how frequently you should send marketing email to your personal opt-in list. Just because you have one doesn't mean you can or should send to it every day. Once a month at the most is fine. Just make sure that you remove anyone from your list who requests to not receive your emails. | 
