What do I mean by permission email marketing? It’s really simple; I will ask your permission before sending you emails, recording your personal information or promoting my products and services to you. It’s a concept that Seth Godin describes in his book permission marketing.

And it’s a concept that should guide your approach to email marketing and using autoresponders in your business. Email deliverability is a benefit, which getresponse and aweber autoresponder systems promote quite strongly. And with good reason.

ISP’s (Internet Service Providers) and web-based email providers, like hotmail and yahoo, have agressive anti-spam filters and will ‘blacklist’ consistent offenders. Bulk email distribution has traditionally been regarded as spam and you want to avoid being tarnished with the same brush.

In January 2004 the CAN SPAM act became law. It bans misleading email headers, deceptive subject lines, insists your email have an opt-out method and you must show a postal address. There are penalties for non-compliance.

So, with the idea of seeking permission from your customer or prospect in mind, here are 3 simple guidelines,

• Use double opt-in. This is where, as a potential subscriber, you submit your name and email address. You then receive an email which asks you to click on a link to confirm you really want to join the list.
• Always include, at the bottom of every email sent, instructions and a link to allow the reader to unsubscribe from your list, along with the registered postal address of your web business.
• Display a privacy policy to reassure your subscriber. For example it could say ‘we will never share, rent or sell your personal details’.

This is one of the advantages of using getresponse or aweber. They are standard features of their service. So you don’t have to think about keeping up-to-date with the legislation and you know you have asked permission.