Thanks so much for the comment.

About the contests, this can be really tricky as there are tons of regulations on sweepstakes, but if you do your homework, I still think this can be a good direction to take.

But, to your point, DJ, I think you definitely run the risk collecting bogus emails – but I think it largely depends on how you go about it.

In the past, the giveaways that I have done have been very small scale compared to say what a larger company may do. The giveaways I’ve done have largely revolved around existing readership and trying to get them to “convert” to a medium by which I could communicate more readily with them.

I’ve never “advertised” any small contest I would run outside my social network (i.e. on my blog, Facebook fan page, or Twitter stream), and the resulting “registrants” would really only be 100 to 300 people total, and most of them were already readers anyway.

So, I’m not sure that I ran into too big a problem with bogus emails or people signing up that would have absolutely no interest in what we’re saying. Not to mention that the prizes we would give away were usually related to our audience.

One of the giveaways I was thinking about doing at Too Creative was a free blog set up and one year free hosting – which is something I might normally charge $100 to $200 to do. But, Too Creative is very new and I still haven’t solidified all those details yet!

Again, DJ, thanks soo much for taking time to chime in. I greatly appreciate the clarification.

I would just caution readers on your last point about “running contests.” This can be a tricky one as you get a boat load of subscribers who don’t *really* want to be on your list, but are just signing up for the free stuff/contest. I know you talked about the double opt-in approach which is great. However, be aware that you may run into some deliverability issues as one metric ISPs look at is hard bounces. A bunch of bogus email addresses could lead to a high number of bounces, thus impacting deliverability.

One more point I’d like to clear up.

Single Opt-In: A subscriber signs up and is added to your list. Simple. Done.
Single Opt-In With Confirmation: A subscriber signs up and is added to your list. You send them an email thanking and/or “confirming” that they have signed up. No further action is required.
Double Opt-In: A subscriber signs up and is added to your list. You send them an email where they must take action before being added to your list. They must click a link, enter a capcha/code. If they don’t, they are not a subscriber.

Finally, double-opt in is *not* required by most Email Service Providers, nor should it be in my opinion. More on that later if you are interested.

Thanks again for talking email marketing! Love it.

DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory
@djwaldow