Hello, first post but I expect to add more with time

We're deciding on whether to pursue the email marketing or direct marketing method to contact possible customers for our new business.

How do companies react to email marketing? I mean, when we're up and running, even though we'll be quite a small business, I don't think I'd pay much attention to email from unknown senders and probably just delete it.

Direct marketing is obviously more expensive, but I see it as more personal and in my opinion, will be more effective compared to email marketing.

What are your experiences/opinions?

Regards,
JB.

It depends how you build your lists.

If you send unsolicited email you will end up being blacklisted as a spammer....

If you send snail mail it may cost you more, but you could get a higher return depending on how you do it

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Would this apply to a free service. I'd be just making a company aware of a free service available to them.
Im looking to start a website (as ive said in a previous post) so get content a some initial traffic i wanted to offer a free service. Would you still reckon its spam.

It would basically be, pick x amount companies from thr golden pages. Send them a simple text mail stating we are whoever and ye can do abc on our site for free. A once off? what u think.

It doesn't matter if the service is free or not. If you send unsolicited email you will upset people.

The better alternative is to pay for advertising space in someone else's newsletter

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from Spam Guide - Data Protection Commissioner - Ireland

Interesting, if you read the information on that link - it says that you are allowed to send marketing emails to companies (not individuals) provided they haven't expressed any desire not to receive them :

So, it looks as if you can safely send at least an initial marketing email.

Not really. The legislation is very weak.

If you want to avoid getting blacklisted you should try to follow these guidelines:

The Spamhaus Project - The Definition Of Spam

and

Spamhaus - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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Ok - it would be unsolicited, but it wouldn't be bulk email.

What I was thinking of was a single email, to a single company, with a specific proposal for them. Looks as if that is acceptable.

And conversely, what would be spam, would be to send identical unsolicited emails to loads of different companies.

Sounds like you've got the idea

Unlike some people:

Lotus Chinese Medical Services Are Spamming Scum

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Would people agree with Frank that this is acceptable?
Could some reciepient companies still view it as spam?