Do any of you know of any law firms using opt-0ut email newsletters? Do any of you use opt-out newsletters?

By opt-out I am referring to sending out emails for marketing purposes, without permission of the recipients, which include a “opt-out link” notifying the sender the recipient wants no more e-mails from the sender.

Such email is basically spam, to me. It’s an annoyance to receive email you don’t want from someone you don’t know and have to go through the effort of asking the sender to stop sending you things you never wanted in the first place.

I receive opt-out emails from law firms and other organizations every day. I didn’t sign up to receive the emails and it’s frankly a pain to unsubscribe.

Many of the unsubscribe features require a couple steps on my part. Some ask, “Are you sure you want to unscubcribe?” Am I sure? I already dislike you for sending me things I don’t want, but maybe I should rethink what I’m doing?

It’s easy to share information of value through the net — and to do so without forcing the information upon folks. Blogs, social media and email sign ups for white papers, survey results and studies are just a few of the ways to do so — and all ways to building a subscriber list.

When you have to resort to forcing things on people as if you’re passing out handbills on the sidewalk, maybe it’s a good sign what you’re sending out isn’t of much value — or that you don’t know how to effectively use the net.

I get the value of email newsletters and understand the requirment for the opt-out link on each. But why not send emails to subscribers? People who have voluntarily subscribed.

Ask the best lawyers. It’s all about relationships and a word of mouth reputation when it comes to building a book of business. Equally so on the Internet.

Sending opt-out email does nothing for relationships or building your reputation.

I have friends who have email newsletters going to 30,000 plus subscribers, all of whom opted in. We have clients who use their blogs like email newsletters who have over 10,000 subscribers — all who subscribed (opted in).

MailChimp, one of the leading email marketing services, sending over 10 billion emails per month on behalf of its users, will dump your account if they see you are sending emails to people who did first subscribe. We use MailChimp to send blog posts to subscribers of the LexBlog Network blogs, in part because of their strict policy.

Maybe I am old school, but I don’t see why professionals would ever want to send out spam-like email. Am I missing something?