Just got off the phone with a client. Together, we had just spent 2 weeks of blood, sweat and tears creating her e-mail list, her newsletter design, me trying to jump up and down and slam into her head, all the knowledge inside of me which was stored over the years about email marketing and WHY you have to do such things as opt-in, pay a company to hold your list and let them e-mail your clients, vs. just ‘copying and pasting’ a cute message and blasting it off to 1,000 people…

So we get SOOOO CLOSE… I mean, the email template is finitely tweaked, tuned, her account at the e-mail marketing service takes 2 days to approve, etc. And once it does, she’s like, “Hey, why am I spending $30/mo for this when I could just paste the test you sent me and blast it out to everyone?”

My initial reaction… “Well, hmm… you COULD do that, but then you’d get your account shut down.”

Her: “Really? Why”
Me: “‘Cause you can’t just paste an email and blast it off to people. Firstly, their data was merged into the email text, which has your personal greeting on it, and everyone will see that, plus, copying/pasting is no guarantee that the design will not break/graphics will not break. Finally, if someone clicks ‘unsubscribe’ the FIRST time you send out an email on this service, that’s a black mark against your account with these guys. We agreed to the Terms of their Service which included major stuff from the CAN-SPAM laws like, swearing up and down that these people were your customers, that they wanted to hear from you, and that they had previously opted in. Also, someone may or may not remember who you are, report you for spamming. That is another bad thing. These services exist to help you avoid all that”

Her: “Oh”
Me: (Thinking…”Where WERE you last week when I sat and explained all these things to you on the phone for half an hour??)

It’s enough to make me want to bang my head against the wall until it’s pulpy!

Copyright © Bobbi Jo Woods - published June 6, 2009 at http://www.webprospeak.com

About the author:
Bobbi Jo is the owner of B. Woods Design, a St. Paul Web Design company - http://bwoodsdesign.com