3.9. Creating Email Lists and Surmounting the Spam Problem

Although they sometimes seem a little old fashioned, email lists can be a great mechanism for increasing interest in your websites over time. It’s fair to say that in the long run, all successful websites include an email component in their marketing plans to drive traffic. These emails can be informal, but increasingly they take the form of email newsletters.

The rise of spam email, the creation of increasingly stringent spam filters, and certain legislation related to spam email means that marketing email can no longer be considered a do-it-yourself proposition. Apart from legal issues, if you start sending bulk emails from the mail server associated with your website, many will not go through, and you are likely to be blacklisted by major ISPs (Internet Service Providers).