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E-mail Appending: A more cautious approach
Last month I wrote an article outlining nine ways to increase your mailing list (Building Your Nonprofit’s E-mail List -- http://npadvisors.com/NewContent/100357.asp). One of those nine ways was to consider appending email addresses to your postal list of supporters. In response, I got this email from subscriber Bill Pease, Ph.D. Chief Technology Officer of GetActive Software: “I typically find myself in agreement with your best practice recommendations for non-profits, but the following item caught my attention: "Append: Consider sending your donor file to a reputable computer service bureau..." I offer the opposite recommendation to my clients regarding epend: avoid it unless done under very circumscribed conditions. The risk of generating spam complaints from email lists generated in this way is very high, and the adverse consequences that such complaints can lead to (organizational stigmatization as a spammer, blacklisting, etc) are large. “The problem is especially severe for epend lists built through opt-out messages: it is just not possible to construe failure to opt-out of the epend offer as recipient consent to be communicated with by an organization. Of course none of the anti-spam vigilantes that operate the dominant blacklist publication or distributed spam detection networks accepts failure to opt-out as equivalent to permission-based consent. “Even if the epend service provider has strong opt-in to its email source lists (which is often questionable in its own right), opt-out epend is guaranteed to generate unsolicited mail complaints against the organization that uses this approach. I note recent survey results that found that less than 80 percent of recipients do not think a mailer who has their postal address on file "has the right to send me email." In this context, organizations need to be especially careful of misusing their donor file. “In my opinion, the only acceptable form of epend that should be recommended as a best practice to non-profits is opt-in epend (i.e., organization only adds names to its email list if the email epend vendor has permission-based source lists and the recipients of the epend offer take a positive action to share their email address with the organization). Even in this case, non-profits need to be apprised that the initial epend mailing is likely to generate complaints to their organization about this form of list building.” I wrote back to Bill saying that I understood his concerns, and didn’t want my brief mention of email appending to be construed as blanket approval for the process. I replied that I thought that the greatest danger of this process isn’t backlash from the supporters themselves, but from ISP’s and what I call “spam vigilantes” who would try to block all email from that nonprofit based on one or two complaints from recipients who thought they were spammed. Bill seemed to agree: “Rick: On the issue of spammer stigmatization: I would agree that the biggest risk is that the organization becomes stigmatized via anti-spam activists and then confronts all the delivery barriers that result from even transient blacklisting. If they are guilty of sending unsolicited mail (= epend mailing if it wasn't explicit opt-in) they really have zero defense against this. “But I think sending unsolicited mail has an adverse impact on donors as well -- recipients let their frustration at overburdened inboxes and offensive mail leak over onto other unsolicited mail which is more well-meaning (either an organization prospecting for new recruits, or trying to switch current donors from offline to online communication). I see too many outraged emails from members of our client’s lists who believe for one reason or another that they are getting unsolicited mail. “There are some orgs that really push the limits, and face a high risk of very public exposure/condemnation as a spammer -- this is not a good crowd for a nonprofit to be associating one's brand with.” So let me be clear: appending email addresses makes sense to me if (a) the firm that’s appending the e-mails has permission to send e-mail to those names, and (b) they send each appended e-mail address a message asking to transfer permission to the nonprofit. Bill and I disagree on whether the message should have an opt-out or opt-in. In either case, I’d recommend sending an e-newsletter to a small sample of the newly appended names right away, to test bounce rate, unsubscribe rate, response, and any complaints. NPA is managing an e-mail append for a major client right now, so we’ll keep you posted on the results. February 2004 | |
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