QI Sponsors OpenAir User Group

OpenAir, a Boston-based project workflow solution provider, has selected us to host a bi-monthly user group for their SF Bay Area clients. Watch our web site for dates and times. Quinn Interactive uses OpenAir for project and resource management.

QI to Host Blog Meetup

On Wednesday, September 26, 2007 @ 6:30pm we'll host the 4th meeting of the SF Bay Area Web Site Management and Marketing Meetup with a timely topic of effective use of blogs for business.

The evening will consist of presentations on the nature and state of blogs, their effectiveness as marketing tools, and options for implementing successful blogs in your online marketing efforts. Each brief presentation will be followed by discussions with input from participants. Light food and beverages will be served.

To join our meetup list for future announcements visit:
Meetup.com. »

Responsible e-mail marketing

E-Mail marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses electronic mail to send commercial or fund raising messages to an audience. Unlike direct mail using the postal service, the cost of delivering the message is borne by the recipient. Also, because so many recipients filter out junk mail—spam—it’s in the sender’s and the recipient’s best interest for you to do your e-mail marketing responsibly. Finally, responsible e-mail marketing keeps you square with federal law.

What are the best practices for e-mail marketing? We’ll take a look at how you can be a responsible e-mail marketer.

To be responsible, get permission

Permission-based e-mail marketing is responsible. These best practices go beyond what the federal CAN-SPAM law requires. It’s easy to implement these best practices. Here’s the list of people you can send marketing e-mail to:

• People who have specifically signed up through your website. This means they checked a check box—don’t pre-check it for them!
• People who completed off-line forms and indicated they wanted to receive e-mail.
• People who gave you their business card and asked to receive e-mail.
• People who purchased something from you in the last 2 years. The purchase gives you implicit permission, but go the extra mile and ask for explicit permission anyway.

To look at it from the negative side, anyone who’s not covered by the list above should not be sent any marketing e-mails. Here are 3 examples of what not to use:

1. Lists or e-mail addresses received from a third party—Includes any list you bought or rented, got from a partner or membership organization. No matter what the source of this list says, you cannot send e-mail to them.
2. Addresses you collected or “copy & pasted” from the Internet—Even if they look like ideal customers for you, you mustn’t e-mail someone just because you found their address.
3. Addresses you haven’t e-mailed to for over 2 years—Permission doesn’t age well. Even if you got their permission legitimately, they won't remember giving it to you. If you haven’t sent something to that address for over 2 years, you can’t restart now.

Double opt-in

Finally, if possible, your web site should use the “double opt-in” method to sign up new recipients to your e-mails. Double opt-in means your site sends an e-mail asking the person to confirm they really want to join your mailing list. The email contains a web link to click on to confirm. Only if they confirm do you add their address to your list. This method makes sure that you have their correct address and that they haven’t been added in error or by pranksters.