BCP

I have previously explained the important part permission can play in successful mail programs. But what if you intend to send messages to people who never gave you any level of permission to do so? You may feel entitled to send these messages because they have a veneer of legitimacy such as implied consent or legal permissibility. But is is really a good idea? Implied consent Implied consent is when you collect an email address but fail to also collect explicit permission use it for marketing purposes. Sometimes that’s fine because the address was surrendered with an assumption that that it would be used for marketing. Sometimes it’s not fine because no such assumption was made. How do you know the difference without waiting for complaints? Get any contacts with implied consent properly permissioned before you start sending marketing messages to them. Reluctance to take this step is proof of how weak you know the implied part really is. ...

Sending mail to people who didn’t ask for it is often just asking for trouble. Having people give you permission to send to them is much better. In an ideal world you want first-party consent meaning that people directly subscribed to your list. You have measures in place to confirm that they really did sign up and someone didn’t just stuff their address into a subscription form. These people want your emails. ...