My mother came to me tonight and told me that I’ve got all these friends who are smart, witty, great writers, blah blah. Don’t listen - she’s just trying to butter you up.
What she would like is for us to help her write an amazing email ad for the upcoming breweriana auction at her store (url deleted) in Arkansas on November 6th. She wants this ad to make beer item collectors think, “Oh boy! That sounds great! I’m going to take vacation and drive across the ocean to go to this auction. I’m going to spend my life’s savings there. This is the auction I’ve been waiting for my whole life!” Or something like that. I can’t remember her exact words.
She “wants so many people there, we’ll have to sell tickets!” She’s going to email this ad to all the collectors listed in her breweriana magazine.
I told her that many of you will have moral issues with this, but she wants me to try anyway. We’re not killing kittens, she thinks, so its OK. I’m OK with it because if she makes enough money at this auction, maybe she really will retire and move away at the end of the year. Then I’ll never have to do this again.
Spam starts with a list, and lists cost money. There are good lists, where people opt-in, for example magazine subscribers. Then there are bad lists, where list owners scrape crud from somewhere.
I HEAVILY suggest you use a good list. The thing is, some people who don’t want to be spammed are beyond logical when it comes to these things. Send them one little email, and they fly into a rage beyond what you can imagine. They’ll call your ISP. They’ll call your web-hoster. They’ll call you on the phone at 3am. They will get your connection shut down. I’m not making this up. You really don’t need that pain in your life.
It all comes down to picking the right list. I assume the event is at the store, not an online sort of thing? Then you’ll want something that’s local, something that contains some possible customers.
You can send it yourself, or you can have the list owner send it. It’s cheaper if they send it, as that way they’re keeping control of the list itself.