How do I collect email addresses in Outlook?

[helen]

I have been saving all our enquiry emails and those that turn into bookings in a folder within Outlook, and I want to email past enquirers and visitors with an email announcing our new website. Is there an easy way to pick these addresses up without selecting each email and replying to it? And can I get these email addresses to automatically store within an address book in Outlook?
I would be very grateful if anyone can advise (and save me some time!)
THanks
Helen

[charles]

Hi,

You may want to check current spamming laws before sending out promotional info, especially to those people who only enquiried but didn't book. You should be ok with those who turned into customers since your email can be seen as being relevant to their previous business with you (or words to that effect). And your email would normally need to have an opt-out link at the bottom to allow people to choose not to receive further information.

In answer to your original question I would suggest creating groups in your Outlook contact list and adding the emails manually first (if you open an email and right-click the 'from' email address it gives the option to add to contact list).

Somewhere else in Outlook there should be a way to automate that process - I know you can in Outlook Express - but I'm not sure where/how).

hth
Charles

[Sue Dyer]

Hi, if they're not in your address book you can open each email, right click on the persons email address and you'll get an "add to contacts" choice.

Next you'll need to create a "group". Go to the toolbar "New" button pulldown. Choose "distribution list". Give it a name then click the "select members" button. You can scroll down the list adding these.
If you are sending out a mass email I would send the "group" out in the BBC field and send a copy to yourself in the main "to" field. This means they don't see each other's email addresses, only their own.
Give me a shout if this is not exactly what you need or if not clear, I could do some screen shots.
good luck - Sue

[reddevil]

Thanks for the info soo, I will use this for my distribution list too.

As far as the spam issue goes, I don't consider messages like this as spam because the people WERE interested enough to send me a message in the first place. I consider spam to be a nuisance when I receive messages from companies who I have never ever written to before and are trying to get me to buy cheap drugs or increase my body parts.

And, being a genuine person, if anybody asks to be removed fronm the list then I would do so immediately - and not sell their e-mail to the guy who recently received 9 years in jail for spamming 10m million messages per day - now that's what I call spamming!!

[tansy]

do you know I've just noticed a decrease in spam mail...I've just worked it out...the man in jail must of had me on his list

I can't see it as a nuisance sending an update of your property - I will be doing it as well...once the web site is up (Tony come back all is forgiven ), and we have finished the new bedroom.

Perhaps we all will meet one day - in the same prison!!

[reddevil]

Mixed prisons - is this a thing of the future??

BTW, does anybody want to open all my 500+ e-mails and add them to my Distribution List?? Two cups of coffee in Costa Coffee awaits the lucky winner.

[charles]

Ok for the legal bit then:

What is “soft opt-in� (Regulation 22(3))?

You may send or instigate the sending of electronic mail for marketing purposes to an individual_subscriber where

1. you have obtained the contact details of the recipient in the course of a sale or negotiations for the sale of a product or service to that recipient;

2. the direct marketing material you are sending is in respect of your similar products and services only; and

3. the recipient has been given a simple means of refusing (free of charge except for the cost of transmission) the use of his contact details for marketing purposes at the time those details were initially collected and, where he did not refuse the use of those details, at the time of each subsequent communication.
In other words, if you satisfy these criteria, you do not need prior consent to send marketing by electronic mail to individual subscribers. If you cannot satisfy these criteria you cannot send marketing by electronic mail to individual subscribers without their prior consent.

How does the Information Commissioner interpret “in the course of a sale or negotiations for the sale of a product or service�?

A sale does not have to be completed for this criterion to apply. It may be difficult to establish where negotiations may begin. However, where a person has actively expressed an interest in purchasing a company’s products and services and not opted out of further marketing of that product or service or similar_products_and_services at the time their details were collected, the company can continue to market them by electronic mail unless and until that person opts out of receiving such messages at a later date.

The way I see it you're ok with existing customers, there's just a grey area with regards to enquirers. And if you get an pedantic lawyer on the other end he/she may well challenge you. Hence the opt-out to VYA. And a disclaimer to say the message is sent because you enquired before but if you don't to hear from us etc.

source (in pdf) http://www.informationcommissioner.gov. ... er%202.pdf

Charles

[paolo]

As far as the spam issue goes, I don't consider messages like this as spam because the people WERE interested enough to send me a message in the first place.

That's true and the fact that they enquired makes it incredibly unlikely they will protest at being emailed by you.

However...it can still be spam if you do not have their prior permission to send them emails about your property. An exception to this, in the UK's spam laws at least, is if you only email people at their work addresses.

[Oops, I see Charles beat me to it]

[alexia s.]

"where a person has actively expressed an interest in purchasing a company’s products and services and not opted out of further marketing of that product or service or similar_products_and_services at the time their details were collected, the company can continue to market them by electronic mail unless and until that person opts out of receiving such messages at a later date."

I don't see a grey area there. When somebody asks me for information about my property - more photos, availability, etc - I make the reasonable assumption that they are expressing an interest in renting the property (i.e. in "purchasing products and services"). What other legitimate interest do they have in asking me these questions?
I have absolutely no expertise in this field but if the text quoted above is a reliable guideline I can't see what grounds a pedantic lawyer would have to challenge an unsolicited mail I sent after my original reply.
Just one point: the text refers to "the company" - presumably different "rules" apply to non professionals??? (This is normally the case in consumer legislation.)
I've never even considered the spam question so I might be light-years away from what is going on: I'm just interpreting the text Charles quoted.

[helen]

Hi Soo,
Thanks for the help, trouble is when I go to New, Distribution list, select members I get the following error message:
The address list could not be displayed. THe Contacts folder associated with this addresslist could not be opened; it may have been moved or deleted, or you do not have permissions. For information on how to remove this folder from the Outlook Address Book, see Microsoft OUtlook Help.
It doesnt half make things complicated!!
Any ideas?
Thanks
Helen

[Sue Dyer]

yikes!!!

I put your error into google and came up with this from Microsoft support
http://support.microsoft.com/default.as ... us;Q319901

Suggests the address book is damaged... It does give you a fix at that link. Microsoft.... dontchay just love it

Let us know how you get on with that Helen. Lots of folk here I know will help out inc myself

[Alan Knighting]

Microsoft.... dontchay just love it

Not really!

I just downloaded an upgrade to V.10 and a security upgrade for Media Player. The net result? I had to reset all my personal settings. Also, I recently downloaded a security upgrade for Internet Explorer and again had to reset all my personal settings.

After over 30 years in IT - "Microsoft.... dontchay just love it" - not really!.

Give me Unix+XWindows (Linux) anytime but it's "easier" to be a mainstream MS user. I must getting lazy in my old age.

I wonder; does Brooke know what I mean?

[vrooje]

Oh yes, I definitely do. I started using Unix and then Linux at university, and my first Linux home installation was RedHat, shortly before they announced they were going to stop supporting it. I now run Fedora Linux on my laptop, but on both my home desktop and my laptop I maintain a dual-boot with WinXP, just because there are some things that are still simpler in Windows. Presentations and publications are two big ones.

However, I much prefer the e-mail clients in Linux, and even the word processing and spreadsheet software has come a long, long way. I now have no problem using OpenOffice rather than Word or Excel. Automation of things has come a long way, but I still retain complete control over my OS -- no Microsoft funny business. I love love love that.

The level of control one has over the OS, though, also means that a lot of things are still done manually. In many ways it's easier to just let Windows take care of that... hence the nickname Windoze... since one can be lazy!

Lately, many departments and individuals in astronomy and physics are actually switching to OSX for Mac, because it's based on a Unix kernel and so it can run almost all X-windows and terminal applications, but it can also easily do all the things Windows PCs can do. And for publishing and heavy graphics applications, Apple is supposed to be better.

I would have switched to OSX this time around, but powerbooks are so expensive!