my del.icio.usE-mails: The Difference between BCC: and CC:
This is an oldie but goodie, but for some of you who are still forwarding e-mails or sending mass e-mails, this is for YOU!
For any e-mails, when forwarding, it is considered better form to put e-mail addresses in the “Bcc:” (Blind Carbon Copy) section of your message. This is so that people who are receiving the message do not see the e-mail addresses of the other people receiving the message.
Mostly this is to protect privacy for people who (like me) are very concerned about spam. As it is right now, if you send an e-mail to everyone in your address book in the “to” field, everyone who receives that e-mail will have access to each of the personal e-mail addresses in the field…. if you’re concerned about privacy (and you should be), please be careful!
You’ll always want to put recipients in the “BCC:” section so their personal e-mail is hidden.
Better yet, you’ll want to offer an option to your mailing list to sign up for your opt-in service. In this way, you can build a dedicated fan list of people who have *agreed* to receive your messages at the e-mail address of their choosing.
What I suggest is:
1) TEMPORARY OPTION: Use Bcc: when forwarding messages and add a line saying “If you’d like to unsubscribe from these messages, send a message to __________”
2) BETTER OPTION: You set up a mailing list such as one at groups.google.com or www.ConstantContact.com or any other open source version (like www.phplist.com) that you get set up on your host. A mailing list like this gives you much more confidence in the messages you send: your participants may choose IF they want to receive your marketing messages AND they can choose to opt-out or change their e-mail address with you.
Try it out!