Re: [SC-Help] advice needed -- is this spam?

[Francis Nantha (Manager, Marketing & PR)]

Dear Michael Lefevre,

Your comments were useful, but it still leaves me looking for a practical
solution that works. Perhaps, if I outline the situation in more detail, other
solutions may arise.

Our website is a content aggregator, acting as a redistribution channel for
information -- among others, many business directories (both electronic &
printed). They choose to do so coz we have more resources to work with (enuff
said, I don't plan to hype my website here).

The problem is keeping contact information up-to-date coz people change jobs,
contact details change -- all too frequently without a forwarding address. While
it is ideal to have a sign-up list either at the partner's site or at ours, few
actually bother (a very common problem I believe). Recommended practice is to
contact all listings at least once a year, cull out old entries and update new
ones -- but in practice culling is usually left out, and this results in an
ever-bloated set of directory listings which are of no use to anyone.

Our website aims to ensure culling is actually carried out, but this means we
have to do it ourself (try getting others to do it, including many
permission-based e-mail lists!). We need to do so coz we aim to be a reliable
directory information provider (among others) and we would rather not disappoint
visitors who come to our site, check up a possible lead for say widget supplies,
try to contact that supplier, fail to do so, then send us a flare and
word-of-mouth spreads that our information is useless. I know many others don't
care about reputations being bashed, but our focus on service means we do care
even about such small details.(BTW, we don't sell e-mail lists)

We had planned to do a quarterly validation check of all e-mail addresses with a
simple message:
Title: Routine Contact ValidationTest
Message: This is our quarterly check if your e-mail account and other contact
details are still valid. Please don't reply to this message, and go to <URL> if
you need to update your contact details.

There will bound to be some bounced e-mails, and we will cull out those that get
rejected. At least that way we can provide a reasonable guarantee that info is
kept up to date -- at least for a quarter. Any other suggestions as to how we
can achieve this?




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