Establishing Your Private Mailing List
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Why e-mail is not dead—the latest.
Why Have Your Own Mailing List? There are numerous reasons to own and use your own mail list. They include some of the same reasons that make it imperative to join someone else’s list. Running a permission-based private mailing list can be beneficial in many ways, including: •
Gets you in front of your customers and potential customers on a regular basis
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Conserves contacts
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Builds repeat traffic to your Web site (as discussed in Chapter 3)
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Branding
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Promotion of your destination, packages, specials, and events
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First of mind marketing
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Potential source of revenue.
Permission-Based Marketing Permission and privacy are critical to the success of any e-mail marketing campaign. Although unsolicited direct “snail mail” might be generally accepted or at least tolerated by many consumers, the rules are completely different on-line. Unsolicited e-mail (known as spam) runs the risk of damaging your company’s reputation, not to mention the very real possibilities of flames, public blacklisting, hack attacks, or having your Internet services revoked. For serious spammers, recent legislation adds heavy fines and the possibility of prison. Online consumers are quick to let you know when you have crossed the line, and unsolicited e-mail definitely crosses the line. Because of this, online marketers are using many techniques to get their customers, potential customers, and Web site visitors to give them “permission” to send e-mail on a regular basis. Permission marketing is really a win-win situation. Recipients receive information that they asked to receive, and the marketer is communicating with an