As part of our ongoing efforts to implement best marketing practices, we are creating an opt-in email list for our email marketing efforts.  When I first started with the company, they had a database of 30,000 to whom they were sending email “blasts”. We knew all 30,000 people hadn’t opted in, so basically we were spamming (spam = unsolicited bulk email).  By changing our email marketing distribution provider to one that ties directly into our CRM package, we’ve been able to reduce that list by about 10,000.  Knowing that effort still wasn’t good enough, we decided that we would contact that list one final time and invite them to opt-in.  We were very clear in our message – we stated that if they clicked the “unsubscribe” button or did nothing at all, we would remove them from our list.  Recipients had to actually click ”subscribe” to ensure future email communication from us.  Clear and simple, right?  Well a short time later I received an email from a publication we’ve advertised with in the past.  The ad rep had received the opt-in email request and was contacting me to remind me that they had an email list available for rent.  Now I’m not sure if she didn’t read the entire email or what, but we were crystal clear in our message that from this point forward we would only be sending our email newsletter and webinar announcements to those people who had asked to receive them.  So how would people on an email list that we RENTED have agreed to receive email from us?!?!  I actually shook my head in disbelief as I read her email.  Not only will we not rent that email list, you can bet we won’t be advertising with that publication either.