Creating Effective Opt-in E-Mail Campaigns

Its been said before, but important to re-emphasize, e-mail is
the "killer application" of the information age. According to
the latest Forrester Research numbers, the permission based e-mail
industry is projected to grow from $164M (USD) in 1999 to $7.3B by
2005. E-mail is also rapidly moving from a textual communications
process to one that is rich in multimedia content via server-based
streaming audio or video - virtually anyone, even those with
extremely low bandwidth, can now view compelling content. Here is a
condensed primer for developing an effective opt-in e-mail campaign:

1) First and foremost, what is permission based or opt-in e-mail and
how is it distinguished from Spam? Opt-in or permission based e-mail
(the terms are interchangeable) means recipients have confirmed their
interest in receiving e-mail and have signed up (hence the term opt-
in) to receive e-mail about a subject of their interest. The
recipient may also unsubscribe from the list at any time and all e-
mail messages are clearly identified as coming from a specific and
approved vendor or source.

2) We do not recommend Spam (unsolicited bulk e-mail messages) to our
clients, nor have we ever developed a campaign that is not opt-in
based