Every email that you send via Pianola includes an unsubscribe link. With one click your recipients can remove themselves from your mailing list. This article explains why that's important and what happens when a recipient clicks this link.
Many countries have enacted legislation about marketing and mass emails in an attempt to reduce the volume of spam that people receive. In order to comply with most anti-spam legislation you need to provide recipients with a reliable and fast method to remove themselves from your list.
What is spam?
Spam is defined as unsolicited bulk email. Although the content of your emails is probably perfectly legitimate and relates to your players' interest in bridge, the fact that you are sending a bulk message means it could fall under the definition of spam.
To ensure that it isn't also classified as 'unsolicited' you need to respect your players' choice about whether or not they want to receive your emails. By providing an unsubscribe link, they can express their choice easily.
The alternative
If people don't have an easy way to remove themselves from your list they will often resort to clicking the 'This is spam' button inside their own email system. This is bad news because it means that your ability to email other people may be harmed. The email providers (especially the large ones like AOL, Hotmail, etc) share information about spam reports and if a sender is repeatedly getting reported for spam, their emails will likely start getting automatically sent to the spam folders of other customers.
How Pianola helps
When a recipient of your email unsubscribes or clicks the spam button we will:
- Block the email address in their membership record in order that they will not receive emails in future
- Let you know we have done so
Sometimes, recipients will have unsubscribed or clicked the spam button inadvertently. You may choose to contact the player and check that they really did intend to unsubscribe from your mail.
If they clicked the spam button you may like to ask them to reverse the spam report, with the reassurance that they will not receive emails from you again.