SPAM question

I'm hoping someone has personal experience in this that can offer advice. I have a brand new website that is a classified site for real estate and automobiles. I want to email local businesses about it and let them know that they can list their ads for free just so I can get some content on the site before I begin marketing it(there really is no catch). Anyway, I don't want to be a spammer, but I *think* people would actually like to advertise their property for free to get more exposure. Even if I follow the guidelines outlined in the CANS-PAM Act, would it still be considered spam since I'm not even selling them anything? The emails would only be a one time thing to 100 or so local business, brokers and dealers.

The main area I'm not sure about is this:



Since I'm offering it for free to local businesses, I don't think it's technically a commercial email by definition. And I couldn't find any help email addresses on the FTC site.

It's still considered to be commercial and falls into the CAN-SPAM. CAN-SPAM doesn't say spam is illegal, it just sets those few requirements for what your messages must contain. So just implement those guidelines and you'll be fine. Make sure you provide an opt-out method that lets these companies say that they don't want your email.

Thanks for the reply, that helps. But do I need to provide an opt-out method even if I keep track of who I email and clearly tell them that this will be the only email I send them? Or can the opt-out methoed simply be telling them to ignore the mail and they'll never get another one?

If it's only for about 100 companies, could you not phone them direct? Do a bit of research and find out the name of the person you should talk to. This method has worked better for us, number 1 it makes it a more personal approach to that company and number 2 you know the information is getting to the right person.

You should ALWAYS provide an opt-out option...all mine is is a line at the bottom that reads 'to be removed from list, simply reply with subject 'REMOVE'.'

pretty simple, and it keeps you all legite-like.

hope that helps.

Is spam really the best marketing tool you have. I know it's cheap and stuff but now days most of it just gets filtered out by spam tools or deleted. Company I used to work for sent out sales people (college kids who got paid if and only if they made a sale and took a percentage of the deposit). They'd call and visit businesses. We also got a lot of traded services. We build your website, you write some legal papers or you give us free fliers.