Your email list has a tragic flaw. The most important element of all email marketing campaigns is the list of recipients. If these customers don’t value or want an email from you, it becomes a tremendous risk.

In today’s world it is imperative that all recipients on your email list confirm that they wish to receive an email from your spa business. It has become a critical and established best business practice to double opt-in when using the SpaBoom email-marketing tool.

Why? If your list is populated with email addresses that have not chosen to double opt-in, your spa is in danger of being blacklisted. Email providers like AOL, Hotmail and Yahoo will blacklist your business (IP address) and it is extremely hard to be removed from these lists. Bottom line, your customers will not receive your promotional emails.

How to avoid being blacklisted:

• Get Invited. When customers come to your website or spa they can “Opt-in” or provide you with their email address. This is good, but these customers are not yet viable targets.
• Ask again. The best practice is to send emails to all opt-in customers and make sure they want to be included in your mailings. If they respond and “double opt-in” you can be sure you are welcome. Their email confirmation says “I want to hear from you” and then the risk of being blacklisted by an email provider has been substantially reduced.

The reality is that your list will be smaller but remember your list will be comprised of customers who want to hear from you.

For more information on this topic please review this older post. In addition, Seth Godin, a marketing expert and the author of Permission Based Marketing, is a great resource for information on email marketing. You can read his blog here.