Using Emails of Commenters | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

I am not much of a fan either.

Wow – I'm glad I found this.  First, I'm kind of shocked by a few things.  

1) About every 2 weeks, I take the emails from the comments and send each person who has commented on the site a personal note saying "thanks for leaving a comment"  - It's not a plug in, nor a mass email – I email each person individually.  I know that there are people who have commented in this thread that have gotten them, as well – and never expressed their annoyance.  If I was bother you, I'm sorry.  I've found that sending an email to each of my commenters has really helped me get to know a lot of my readers better, specifically a lot of you yakezie members.  These emails are not automated and simply say thanks for commenting.

2) The fact that it is not exactly legal.

3) I will say though – that I feel like this has been a great way to get to know a bit more about the actual blogger – perhaps something they havent shared on their site about themselves, or to help them out with something if they need it (I always offer, because I'd be happy to help with anything any of you need). 

At any rate – thanks all of you for the feed back.  I'll have to consider what to do about this going forward.

Jeff @ Sustainable Life Blog said:

Wow – I'm glad I found this.  First, I'm kind of shocked by a few things.  

1) About every 2 weeks, I take the emails from the comments and send each person who has commented on the site a personal note saying "thanks for leaving a comment"  - It's not a plug in, nor a mass email – I email each person individually.  I know that there are people who have commented in this thread that have gotten them, as well – and never expressed their annoyance.  If I was bother you, I'm sorry.  I've found that sending an email to each of my commenters has really helped me get to know a lot of my readers better, specifically a lot of you yakezie members.  These emails are not automated and simply say thanks for commenting.

2) The fact that it is not exactly legal.

3) I will say though – that I feel like this has been a great way to get to know a bit more about the actual blogger – perhaps something they havent shared on their site about themselves, or to help them out with something if they need it (I always offer, because I'd be happy to help with anything any of you need). 

 

At any rate – thanks all of you for the feed back.  I'll have to consider what to do about this going forward.

If it's not a mass email, it's not legally spam, period. 

MoneyIsTheRoot said:

I actually dont even like the "thank you" emails after receiving a comment…I mean, it's a plugin that sends out a generated email to every single person, its just another email for me to delete.  If you want to thank me, then say it in your comment back to me on the blog.

I absolutely agree with this sentiment. Any email bothers me too. But maybe I am just grumpy like that. 

I absolutely hate those thank you emails. And, usually in fraction of second delete them, cursing the sender. 

I don't want to use it knowing 90% of my commenters are fellow yakezies. I don't feel the need to specially thank them in an email.

Jeff @ Sustainable Life Blog said:

Wow – I'm glad I found this.  First, I'm kind of shocked by a few things.  

1) About every 2 weeks, I take the emails from the comments and send each person who has commented on the site a personal note saying "thanks for leaving a comment"  - It's not a plug in, nor a mass email – I email each person individually.  I know that there are people who have commented in this thread that have gotten them, as well – and never expressed their annoyance.  If I was bother you, I'm sorry.  I've found that sending an email to each of my commenters has really helped me get to know a lot of my readers better, specifically a lot of you yakezie members.  These emails are not automated and simply say thanks for commenting.

Sounds like it's been working for you. What about making it more evident that it's a personal email though? For example, maybe mentioning something about their site if you see they are a blogger, or hm…I'm not sure what else.

I'm not a fan of the "Thank you for commenting" auto-responses either, but I wouldn't mind a personal response.  Thank you for following DMs irritate me much more. Especially when someone has followed me, and then I follow them back, and then they thank me.

In any case those are all different from the original question about basically signing commenters up for an email list without them asking to be on one, which it seems we all agree isn't a good idea.

The CAN-SPAM Act covers all email messages not just bulk, so you might want to look it over before moving forward.

An alternative is the comment redirect plugin, you set up a page that all first time commenters are sent too.  Cover all the thank you's, like me, follow me, etc. at your site without having to worry about the FTC.

Having the same problem – any new ideas of how to take care of this?