Permission Marketing-Building a trusting relationship with your Web site visitors

Building a trusting relationship with your Web site visitors starts with the common sense approach known as “permission marketing.” The idea behind permission marketing is to get the customer or prospect to volunteer to receive your email newsletters and special offers. This is also known as opt-in. These “hand-raisers” are a lot more likely to not only tolerate receiving your emails, but also to respond favorably to them.

On the other side of the coin is opt-out, where the recipient doesn’t have the opportunity to avoid receiving your first email, only to avoid receiving subsequent emails from you. Respect your recipients’ boundaries and stick with opt-in, not opt-out.

Avoid the use of purchased lists. Many of the lists available for purchase have actually been “harvested” from web pages, newsgroup discussion posts, or domain contact information (from the “whois” database) - without the knowledge or permission of the affected individuals. On the other hand, rented lists from reputable list brokers may be worthwhile, if the list is double opt-in, fastidiously clean of unsubscribes, and finely segmented.