The following post is about commercial email and how you send it to people.  Emails promoting your blog or your products are commercial emails.  The following are my potentially flawed opinions for entertainment purposes only.

First off lets discuss how you can send people commercial emails:

No Optin Or Unsolicited Email - This is where you send someone an email that they never asked for, aka spam.  I thought this was illegal based on the “can spam act” but I was wrong.  More below.

Single Optin Email - This is where you request once to receive emails.  For instance if I have a site that has a box that says “subscribe” and you enter your email address.  After you enter your email Once, and that’s all you do, you are now “opted” into my email list and I’ll send you emails.

Double Optin Email - This is where you 1.  Enter your email in the box and hit “subscribe” and then 2. You get an email where you have confirm, again, that you want the emails.  This is the most popular form of getting permission to send people email that I see my friends using.

Why Do We Care About How People Choose To Get Email From Us?

When you use Double Optin you lose many subscribers simply because they never optin the second time.  This happens because they don’t understand the process or don’t care, they don’t want to repeatedly tell you they want your emails.  Bottom line though is you LOSE subscribers using this method, yet most of us use it.

Many people pay for leads or new subscribers.  Because many people lose subscribers because they don’t “double optin” they are losing money.

Also, for me it’s personally annoying when I’m losing subscribers because they don’t “double optin” yet when I go to sites WAY larger than mine like http://www.barackobama.com or http://www.thedailyshow.com/ or http://www.johnmccain.com or http://www.lowes.com/ or many others they are only using a single optin.  If single optin is good for them then why aren’t we using it?

Why Then Are WE Using Double Optin?

For many of us that’s the only option.  If you use feedburner or similar to manage your email then you don’t have a choice.

The reason they use double optin is make absolutely and positively certain that someone they send an email to really requested to get that email and that they have proof.

Who is that good for?  The third party handling your business.  Their business depends on it.  If a large email base like aol or hotmail decides the third party’s servers are spammy their delivery rate falls and their business suffers.  If a claim is made against them they have the “double optin” record to prove they aren’t spammy.

Let’s look at the options further:

Is Sending Spam Or Unsolicited Email Ilegall?

Apparently not.  I always assumed it was but after reading The CAN-SPAM Act: Requirements for Commercial Emailers I noticed that it says nothing about you “can’t send unsolicited emails”.  Nothing.

In fact the only thing the Can-Spam-Act appears to do is give you guidelines you must follow when you ARE sending unsolicited email.  Guidelines such as “give recipients an opt-out method” and “include the sender’s valid physical postal address”.

Should we send unsolicited emails?  Instead of asking people to subscribe to our blog should we just get a giant list of related email addresses and just start sending the blog posts to them?  When I start my real estate site should I get thousands of email addresses from people selling homes and tell them about my site?  What if it’s just one email?  Of course in complete compliance with canned spam.  Why Not?

Should We All Switch To Single Optin?

Maybe you don’t like the idea of unsolicited emails, what about single optin?  What’s wrong with us all switching to single optin?  Major candidates and other large sites are using it.

Simply ask for an email address and when someone offers it that’s it.  Of course still follow the Can Spam guidelines.

I think from now on if I control my email, eg don’t use a third party, I will for sure at least be moving to a single optin system.

If it’s good enough for the next president, it’s good enough for me ;)

Should We Ever Use Double Optin?

If we let someone else control our email then we don’t have a choice and we’ll do whatever they say.

Some benefits of double optin are you might have a better chance of not showing up in spam folders leading to a higher deliverablity rate. However the negative is you will have less subscribers to start with.

What DO You Think About Commercial Email?

Did this post make you think about how you get permission to send email?  My opinion recently changed drastically when I raised my awareness of what others are doing.  Let me know in the comments your opinions on sending unsolicited, single optin, or double optin email.

Also correct me if I’m wrong about any of my points.