Starting Email Broadcasting Service

[NeedScripts]

I am thinking of setting up a email broadcasting service where email list owners can signup for hosted solution for sending out emails to their subscribes.

I was wondering if you guys can help me out about what things should I be specfically careful about.

Thanks for the help and support.

[txbakers]

In one word - SPAM. You could be branded as a spammer for life.

I'd think twice about this one.

[dherman76]

Your going to find that reaching AOL and Yahoo customers is going to become increasingly difficult. May want to be careful

[Strange]

Not to mention current state legislation in some states make it a prosicutable offence. (In VA and AOL is located in the northern part of the state).

[NeedScripts]

It might not be very useful to write down every feature of the program here, but to prevent spam, we plan to setup a double opt-in function for all the list, which I assume should help prevent those spam emailers from using our services.

I assume, now a days more and more email broadcasting service providers are making it double opt-in to prevent spam and have strict policies and are shuting down the accounts of anyone who is spamming. I am not sure if one could do more than that.

What do you guys suggest?

[258cib]

There are a lot of these firms now. 303Media is a tiny firm I know of. Microsoft has one under their bCentral services for business people, which I have used.

Still, if you're looking to serve a niche market or a local market and have an idea on how to market it, go for it. I run several email lists on my 'ol Mac for community groups and people beg to be put on the list and no one asked to get off. Good info isn't spam.

But, really, contract out the entire tech side--there is too much capacity and not enough use. Every geek thinks they can set this up and it will sell itself. Not so.

[john_k]

Email Sherpa is a good source of do's and dont's as well as general tips on utilizing email and newsletters. They speak to people that use email services like the one you are thinking of, so it should be worth checking out.