Think Before You Engage: 100 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Social Media Marketing Campaign

20. Would Collecting Email Addresses Be Worthwhile?

Collecting email addresses can be a tricky thing. Many people are protective of their email addresses because they want to prevent possible issues with spam or unsolicited mail. Other people are afraid that releasing email addresses may cause potential privacy issues.

Before collecting email addresses, you have to consider how you will use the information. If you're using it for email marketing campaigns, make sure that those email-marketing campaigns will have a purpose and you're not just trying to communicate once in a while news about your company. That's better achieved through a news section or blog. An email marketing campaign that has targeted goals and tips with useful information for consumers will be a better use of email data.

If you need email addresses to communicate upcoming releases of beta or other versions of your software, it may be useful to have this data so that you can qualify potential users. Maintaining a database of interested people can help you to gauge the interest in your product or service.

If the email address' sole purpose is to validate a user based on confirmation (to reduce spam and unqualified visits), consider making this process social instead. Facebook and Twitter both use an open “graph” that allows users to input their Facebook or Twitter usernames and data to verify their identity. Your ...