So you have a list of eAppended emails that you want to mail to, but not sure where to begin and want to follow the CAN-SPAM laws correctly. What do you do?
First of all, what is eAppend? It is when you take your direct mail file and pay an outside company to match the information you have to email addresses from their much larger database. Depending on where you send your list to, you should only be paying for the appended names at a small fee per append.
With the list you receive back from them, don't think that you can now just start emailing. Doing this will cause many of the receivers to mark your company as SPAM, say its abuse and you may end up being blacklisted from sending any emails period to your entire email database!
First you have to send Opt-in emails to parts of this new list and ask them to "Click Here" to Opt-In to receive your company emails, newsletters, fundraising and/or event appeals.
The confirmed Opt-In list that comes back can now be sent Welcome emails as you slowly move them into your main email file. Additionally, you can have them double Opt-In by clicking a link that they receive in their email indicating that they are 100% sure that they want to receive your mail. This will confirm that they are a real person and not a bot.
I recommend keeping these lists as separate segments so that you can track how they do in comparison with a file of emails that opted in on their own accord from the beginning.
Remember to follow email rules and the key is to not make people angry via any media channel.