Is there a master mailing list somewhere that will hit all the websites that
should be informed about a no-fee writing competition? Or do I have to find
contact addresses for every writing website one by one?
Best of all possible regards,
Pat Hartman
Virtual Venice
http://www.virtualvenice.info/
Pat,
The short answer is no, there is no master list. You need to find the email addresses one by one.
The quality of a list of email addresses has a lot to do with the procedures one uses to build and maintain it. Here are the rules I go by:
1.) If the list was compiled by a third party, that party needs to have used a double opt-in sign-up process. What that means is the subscriber doesn’t just put his or her email address into a blank on a web page, but also confirms the subscription by responding to a set of instructions sent to that email address. This assures the actual owner of the email address entered it, and not some automated program or other person. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who write programs that enter fake email addresses into sign-up forms. Sometimes it is done maliciously, but many times it is done to probe the script processing the subscription requests and see if it has any exploitable security holes.
2.) If you rent the list from a third-party, that third-party should physically send the message on your behalf. If that third-party simply gives you the list and lets you do your own mailing, you can be sure the list was not compiled using double opt-in methods. More than likely the addresses were harvested randomly from the Internet. It takes a great deal of resources and time to build a quality, double opt-in list. People who go through all that trouble simply do not hand over their hard work to anyone, no matter what the circumstances.
3.) The list should have a bounce rate of less than 5%. What that means is when you send out a mailing, the number of undeliverable emails should not be more than 5% of the total size of the list. Anything higher than that means the list has a lot of bad email addresses on it.
4.) Any email messages sent to a list should be done under the auspices of the list owner. If subscribers join a list expecting to receive emails from list owner Joe Sixpack and instead starts getting messages from Sally Housecoat, they will at best be confused and at worst be extremely pissed with you.
Now, that all said, you now probably will understand better when I tell you this – any list you personally do not have a hand in building is not worth your time. You can never be sure of how another party built their list or how they manage it day-to-day. And if they didn’t follow the rules I listed above, your reputation suffers by association.
Whenever I need to build a list for a specific, one-time mailing, I simply do the research to find the right web sites, newsletters and discussion lists to contact. Then I write a personalized, individual email to each prospect. I do not mass email the same generic message to everyone. Yes, it takes a lot longer to do it this way. But the results are much better.