Answer:

Whoa! Don't start designing that newsletter just yet. You need to solve three critical problems first:

1. You have a lot of addresses belonging to people, many of whom probably have not explicitly permitted you to email them, even though your privacy policy may state you will send promotional messages to anybody who provides an email address when they buy from you.

2. Your database is practically ready for the old-age home. A typical consumer list has at least 20-30 percent turnover every year. So, half of your addresses, or more, could bounce because they went bad.

Because you haven't mailed to the list for so long, you haven't been able to scrub all the out-of-date, invalid or incorrectly entered addresses still lurking in the background, waiting to trash your campaign's ROI. This is key as mailing to bounced addresses may get you tagged as a spammer and result in your emails being blocked to valid addresses.

3. Finally, another percentage of your list belongs to people who probably forgot about their commercial relationship with you. So, they'll probably click the "Report Spam" button in their email clients, because they don't know why you're emailing them.

All is not lost, though. You can still get some use out of these old lists if you follow these procedures:

• Run an opt-in campaign, rather than opt-out. Send out a subscription invitation, and eliminate the addresses that either bounce or don't respond in a set amount of time. An opt-out campaign generates high bounces and complaints, which can get your messages blocked at ISPs.


• When running the opt-in campaign, address privacy concerns at the outset. Really sell your newsletter's benefits. Something like "Thanks for shopping with us all those years ago. We’ve re-launched our email newsletter and hope you’d like you to re-optin so you can receive valuable coupons and email-only specials.” Also make sure you include a brief statement of your email usage policy and link to full privacy policy.


• Offer a coupon or promotion for subscribing, and explain exactly what your users can expect from you.  Segment your mailings to deal with the bounces. You will definitely have high bounce numbers, so it's best not to send out one huge blast. Spread your initial mailing over one or two weeks to get the bounces scrubbed from the list without raising any red flags at ISPs.


• Test content. Use the segmentation as a chance to test out content and response rates on the subscription invitation. You're already segmenting your list to scrub bounces, so you might as well test out various designs and offers at the same time.

If you follow these precautions you'll end up with a list that, while much smaller than what you currently have, should deliver solid response rates in future campaigns.

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