CHICAGO -- Chelle Yarbrough, who provides IT services plus Web-site hosting for travel agents, said agents should never share their e-mail lists with anyone for any purpose. "These are assets. They are trade secrets."

She also advised that lists be developed with almost relentless vigor. For example, she suggested, pay counselors 50 cents each time they add or update a customer's e-mail address in the agency's database.

Similarly, when collecting names of customers or prospects for e-mail promotions or e-newsletters, give incentives -- such as drawings for prizes -- for agreeing to receive the agency's commercial e-mails.

Yarbrough, who is president of Crossover Consulting, based in Lake Arrowhead, Calif., offered additional pointers on e-mail lists and e-newsletters at the Travel Weekly technology conference.

• Get customers' approval to add their names to your e-mail list, or "you could be dumped by your ISP or Web host." Also without user opt-in, e-message recipients will have a low opinion of your company, she said.

• Provide a privacy policy statement at your Web site, and abide by your published policy.

• Send e-newsletters on Tuesdays or Thursdays; weekends are spam time and Wednesdays are busy, as well, she said.

• Always give recipients a chance to unsubscribe, and when they opt out, take them off the list promptly -- and ask why they are withdrawing.

• When sending e-newsletters, don't allow recipients to see the addresses of all other recipients. Besides, Yarbrough said, if you send to a large list simultaneously, it is likely the recipients' ISPs will block the e-mail because it looks like spam "and you could be flagged as a spammer."

• To avoid these issues, list management services assist in distributing e-newsletters, she said. Besides her own subsidiary, GemTravelSites.com, there are ConstantContact.com and Group-Mail.com, she said.

Finally, of more general interest, "never try to unsubscribe to a spam message," she said. "That just verifies that the sender found a valid address," and your address is likely to go on other lists operated by spammers. Report these offenders to Spamcop.net, she said.

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