E-mail marketing is the hot tool that allows companies to reach out to their population base. It is a great way to communicate with your clientele, while keeping it frequent and low cost. It is most cost and time efficient, and it is a great way to expand your client base. When using email lists, it is very important to not get carried away in having huge numbers, but rather to have numbers that represent members who have approved being on your list.

The permission list is of the utmost importance because these are the clients who have agreed to be on your list and who are more interested in receiving your information. Focus your efforts on this group – attempt various marketing tactics on them to see what works best.

Permission lists matter because people who receive unsolicited messages will first and foremost flag the message as SPAM. Receiving an email from a source to which you have not given permission is very irritating for a user. Not only is their Inbox flooded with more unwanted messages, the user will be forced to take time unsubscribe from a mailing that they did not subscribe to in the beginning! Even if your company’s intentions were correct and the message was informative, an unknowing user will flag it as SPAM and you will be forever blacklisted from that person’s attention, even if there might be a case that your mails could be of use to them in the future. This is one important reason to rely on your permission list.

Using contacts that are not on your permission list will also compromise your reputation and credibility as a company. If people start receiving un-requested messages from a source, they will wonder and question the professionalism of the source for seeking out to gain as many contacts as possible without consent. Do not fall into this trap, because re-establishing your reputation is a very difficult task. Years of hard work and dedication will be compromised just because the company did not use the permission list to execute its mailings.

Think about how you feel when you open your email inbox in the mornings and get emails that you didn’t ask for. Most of the time, it’s an automatic delete without even reading the subject line. Most people like to clear their inbox of unwanted junk. In the same way that you would like to be treated, treat those who you are targeting in your e-mail marketing campaign!