How to Send a Blast Email Without Upsetting People

If you already know how to do this and some knucklehead keeps sending you emails visibly copying you in the field of 100 other people, send this to them - you may very well protect yourself in the process. If you’re the knucklehead, then read on. Gently said, my friends.

When people visibly cc a bunch of strangers, a few things happen.

1. The recipient gets annoyed (I do)
2. Your email has been exposed to a whole host of people - people you may not know. These people may not share your views on email privacy and you may find yourself learning all about the virtues of “miracle drugs” (ahem).

A few things to note for instructions on how else to not bug people:

For my low-tech friends, here’s how to do it:

1. Put your own name in the “to” field.”
2. Don’t put anything in the CC (carbon copy) field.
3. Put the email addresses you want to blast this to in the BCC (blind carbon copy) field. This protects the people you’re sharing with.
4. Keep the subject on point - since this is a blast email and it’s not being sent to them specifically, help them to decide quickly if its worth their time or not. Remember, if you’re not taking the time to send that person an individual email, why should they take the time to read it?
5. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point. don’t use annoying fonts, pictures or anything else. Brevity is the order of the day.

Now, for my high-tech friends (or at least the ones that want to cheat a little), check this out:

Easy Mail Merge** - this awesome little program is about $40, and is worth every penny.

Know what people hate most about bulk emails? THEY’RE BULK EMAILS!! If you could still send bulk emails, but …not… this would be the way to do it. You create a distribution list from your Vcards, pop it into the program, and then set the areas you want to populate.

It’s a remarkable little program, and allows for hundreds of emails to be sent INDIVIDUALLY and PERSONALLY to each person on your list. Yes, it’s still a bulk email, technically, but it allows for the recipient to feel slightly more important than the “select all” command on your blast list.

By personalizing your emails to each recipient, you will increase your readership, increase your chances of getting a reply, you won’t expose people to intentional (or unintentional) spammers, and most of all, you decrease the liklihood of upsetting the recipient.

Rules 4 and 5 still apply, no matter which approach you take (low or high tech).

**If you try the program and want me to write a how-to on its usage, leave a comment on this page with a link back to your web site (free promo 4 u) and I’ll post some pictures and tips within a week or so.