By now, you should have some idea of what your e-newsletter is going to be all about. As I wrote in my last post, it might have an information or education focus, or you might use email marketing to promote your products or services and offer special deals or discounts to subscribers.

Whatever your focus, before you begin drafting some poignant prose for your first e-newsletter, you’ll need to take the next step – building your list. This is easily the task that gets most new email marketers all flustered. Add in the term “opt-in,” and they really start singing the blues. Fear not. It’s not really all that tough to build a quality list and stay legal at the same time.

Yup, I wrote “legal.”

Here’s a really bad idea, yet one I see happen all too often. Cruise around the Web and gather up all those email addresses just sitting there on your prospects’ sites. Heck, they posted them, so why not use them? Lemme ‘splain.

Way back in 2003, those fun-lovin’ folks in D.C. drafted a law called the CAN-SPAM Act. For those of you who are into acronyms, it stands for, Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Most people who are familiar with the law believe it was drafted to protect us from the never ending stream of unwanted baloney flowing into our inboxes. Ironically, it actually legalized most spam. From our friends at Wikipedia:

“In particular, it [CAN-SPAM Act] does not require e-mailers to get permission before they send marketing messages. It also prevents states from enacting stronger anti-spam protections, and prohibits individuals who receive spam from suing spammers. The Act has been largely unenforced, despite a letter to the FTC from Senator Burns, who noted that ‘Enforcement is key regarding the CAN-SPAM legislation.’ In 2004 less than 1% of spam complied with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.”

Fortunately, the law was revised in 2008. In order to comply with the new version of the CAN-SPAM Act email marketers must comply with the following (also courtesy of Wikipedia):

Unsubscribe compliance
• A visible and operable unsubscribe mechanism is present in all emails.
• Consumer opt-out requests are honored within 10 days.
• Opt-out lists also known as suppression lists are only used for compliance purposes.

Content compliance
• Accurate from lines (including “friendly froms”)
• Relevant subject lines (relative to offer in body content and not deceptive)
• A legitimate physical address of the publisher and/or advertiser is present.
• A label is present if the content is adult.

Sending behavior compliance
• A message cannot be sent through an open relay
• A message cannot be sent to a harvested email address
• A message cannot contain a false header

Note that falsifying header information is a serious violation of the CAN-SPAM Act and generally is an indicator of criminal or malicious intent which can bring the attention of other law enforcement agencies besides the FTC, including but not limited to the FBI, DOJ and US Postal Inspectors.

The content is exempt if it consists of:
• religious messages;
• political messages;
• content that broadly complies with the marketing mechanisms specified in the law; or
• national security messages.

When you get into email marketing, you’ll hear the terms, “opt-in” and “opt-out,” a lot. Opt-in simply means a subscriber has given you permission to email them. Conversely, opt-out means they don’t want to hear from you again … ever. Okay, well maybe not ever. Sometimes former subscribers will see the error of their ways, miss your sparkling content and come back into the fold.

So, now you know about the legalities. So what? Who’s going to know if you slyly harvested a few thousand addresses? For one, your email distribution service (Constant Contact, MyEmma, VerticalResponse, AWebber, etc.). These companies are rigorous about opt-in and won’t give a second thought to closing your account should you be flagged as sending unsolicited emails. And, they’re right in doing so. Email is their business and they need to protect themselves.

Beyond all this is the simple fact that, unlike snail mail marketing, email marketing is all about the quality of your list, not the quantity. With direct mail, you can expect a .5% – 2% response rate. So, if you want more responses, you simply increase the number of mailed material (and pay the extra bucks to do it). Email marketing focuses on sending to subscribers who want to hear from you. As such, response rates can be higher than with postal-based mailings. Often a lot higher, depending on your content, offer, call to action, etc. Plus, it doesn’t make much sense to email people who have never heard of you, have no interest in your information and will never buy from you.

Alas, I digress. Back to list building.

Client List & Address Book
Begin with your client list and/or your address book. You might also consider former or inactive clients. Your newsletter might just spark rekindling the relationship. These are people with whom you have a relationship. This is a good thing. Chances are they’d like to hear from you and learn what you’re up to.

Craft an introductory message announcing the e-newsletter. Include a line stating that this is a one-time message to make them aware of the newsletter. Add in what it’s about and why it will benefit them. Also include a line letting them know that they can easily unsubscribe (opt-out) at any time.

You have two options here. The first is called, “Negative option opt-out.” The second is “Explicit Opt-Out.” With the former, you send the announcement and request the recipients respond if they don’t want to receive your e-news. The latter is the opposite, requesting the recipients to respond if they do want to be added to your list.

As with most things, there’s an up side and a down side to each. People are busy or just plain lazy, so opt-outs are typically low with the negative method. But, they also tend to be non-responsive and often unsubscribe not too far down the road. I find this method to be a first cousin to trickery, but it’s used often.

The explicit method is authentic opt-in. These subscribers tend to have better response rates for your offers down the road, since they’re truly interested in your stuff. The down side is that you’ll end up with a smaller list. But, as I wrote above, you’ll have a much better quality list.

Business Clubs & Trade Organizations
This group is similar to the above in that you have something in common. Tapping into the introduction announcement you wrote for your client list, begin your message with something along the lines of, “As a fellow member of XYZ, I’d like to announce our new e-newsletter, …” Doing so makes an immediate connection and give a reason why they’re receiving the message. It sets a common ground.

I used this method with a client a while back. He’s a photographer and we emailed to the local ad club where he was a member. Within 15 minutes, people started signing up. As a footnote to this, we sent the message first thing in the morning – around 7:30 AM. By 8:30 AM, he had already booked his first shoot with a new client as a result of the e-newsletter. The system works, folks.

Your Website
All of the email marketing services I’ve used have a tool to generate code for a signup form on your site. Use it. Place the form in a very conspicuous location on your pages. If possible, put it on all the pages within your site. Keep it “above the fold (the bottom of your browser window). At the top of a sidebar is usually a good spot.

Also, don’t be afraid to experiment. Although I find them highly annoying, studies have shown that lightbox techniques and other overlay and slide in windows do work. Problogger, Darren Rowse, experimented with this techniques with great results. Here’s a link to a post he wrote about it. It’s your call, though.

Networking
This one’s another no-brainer, but people forget to do it all the time. When you meet someone at a networking event, simply ask if you can add them to your list. How easy is that? Nine times out of ten, they’ll say, “Sure.”

Trade Shows
If you do the trade show thing, consider using the fish bowl technique. Have a sign that says, “ Drop in your card to receive our e-newsletter,” or something similar. Visitors to your display drop their business card into the bowl and you’ve got their email address. If you offer some type of giveaway, so much the better.

The Giveaway
Speaking of giveaways, got a dandy whitepaper or report? How about some helpful how-to articles or tip sheets? Offer them for free in exchange for a person’s email address. This has proven to be an excellent way to gather contacts and help to position yourself as an expert.

Signatures
Don’t forget to include a link to your signup form in your email signature and discussion group / forum signature.

Forwards
Always include a “forward to a friend,” link in your e-newsletters. Most email service include this option when you send messages. If you’re content is good, subscribers will forward them to friends and associates. Don’t miss the opportunity.

Third Party Lists
There are loads of places where you can buy or rent email lists. In a word, don’t. Theses lists are notorious for having bad or outdated addresses. They are often promoted as being opt-in, but in reality they aren’t.

If you do want to try a third party list, here’s a good article by Jeanne Jennings on ClickZ, with some links to reputable list services.

This should at least get you up and running. Over time, you’ll find and test other methods. List building is an ongoing activity. At least it should be. I’ll be posting more about email list building, so stop back or subscribe to the feed. Next up we’ll talk about email marketing services to manage your newsletters, opt-ins and outs and contacts.

Please note: I am not an affiliate for any services mentioned in this series. Links are provided simply for your reference and convenience.