Hello, as some of you already may know, I am in ISP sales, here is my website: Rock River Internet: Best Local Internet Service Provider - ISP - Rockford, Illinois and I have a pretty good contact list, our primary business is local businesses and I have found that it is very hard to get the decision maker in businesses on the phone (the secretary's are like gatekeepers!) So I have started e-mailing instead. Does anyone have any good advice on this subject? How do I personalize an e-mail (besides just with their name and company) so that it doesn't seem like spam? Any advice in this area would be appreciated.

The first thing you need to do is review the Can Spam Act:

The CAN-SPAM Act: Requirements for Commercial Emailers

Your e-mail must meet all the provisions or it might subject you to penalties. There is no way you are going to make it seem unlike spam, since it will be spam.

I would use a subject like: Does your ISP meet all your needs?
I would then start with an apologize for intrusion and an explanation of who you are. Then ask if they would be willing to discuss with you how Rock River can help them.

Here is an example of an e-mail I have sent:

Dear Mr. _______
How would you like to call a local# and get a dependable, high-speed Internet provider who can help you and knows what they are selling? My name is _____ _____ and I am from Rock River Internet. I obtained your name as a contact for _______ from the Chamber of Commerce list and thought I would write you a quick e-mail regarding our Internet services. Unlike a large Internet provider, we are local and easy to talk to. Here is information about our company.

Rock River Internet: About Us

Rock River Internet is a full service ISP located in downtown Rockford. We own and maintain all of our own equipment and keep hot spares on hand. We monitor all dedicated circuits 24/7 and have the in house experstise to
Quickly troubleshoot and fix problems as needed. We are multi- homed with separate paths to our Internet backbones so if our fiber gets cut we are still fully operational.

Although we do serve residential markets with dial-up and now DSL service, our primary customer base is Rockford area businesses and organizations. If your business or organization depends on Internet, you should depend on us.

Rock River Internet: Services

Rock River Internet offers many options for connectivity for your business or organization such as Business DSL, Standard Dial-up, Wireless, or Dedicated T1 service. We also offer web-hosting, Domain Name Registration, mail services, colocation and other services.

Why should you go with Rock River Internet? We are small, we are local, we are honest, we are progressive, we are responsive, we know what we are selling and have the in-house expertise to install and support it.

Our customers in Rockford include just about every business type including hospitals (Swedish American), medical offices, legal services, government, manufactoring, distributors, and more.

I would love the opportunity to speak with you furthur regarding our services. If you would give me call, my ph# is ____ and you can call 9-5pm M-F. Thank you for taking the time to read this e-mail, as I know your time is valuable to you. I will look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Does this e-mail seem too long? I always follow the guidelines for commercial e-mails, I always put in the subject line: Rock River Internet and my name and e-mail address are on there for them to e-mail me back if they don't want me to contact them again. I don't think I am breaking any laws, but do you have any other ideas for advertising? I am not able to do print or mail advertising at this time, as that would be up to my boss to do, but I can go out and visit offices. It is just hard to get people to even aknowledge you. I know I don't like telemarketers or spam, but I feel that my company is such, that it will benefit businesses. I believe in our ISP, we are not like big ISP's in that great customer service and reliability is our primary concern. We wouldn't survive if we didn't have these two things. For instance, a lot of people in my area have a company called INSIGHT Communications for Internet, and they were down for an entire week this week due to upgrades. We as a company couldn't survive if this was the case in our company. Businesses depend on their websites and email to be up and running at all times.

I'm thinking too long. It will be hard enough to get them to read it unless they're familiar with you or your company anyway... so I'd go as short and sweet as possible, so as to come off like "just a note to say we're here to handle your needs" rather than more detailed explanations.

Just my take on it.

I agree with Rick, that's its too long. I would restrict it to the last three paragraphs. I would then add a PS detailing optout instructions. Something like:

If you do not wish to receive e-mail from us, please send an e-mail to ______ with Remove E-Mail in the subject. Your request will be immediately honored.

Thanks guys, I appreciate your input!