The answer most of the time is “NO!”

Here’s why:

Sharing your list probably breaks the privacy policy you’ve created. When people subscribed to your organization’s email list you probably told them in the fine print (i.e. your terms of service) that the organization would not share any information collected from website users with third-parties. Sharing any information, especially personal information (e.g. an email address) that your clients, customers, members and supporters have trusted you with is a direct violation of the very privacy rules you’ve created. Sharing your list makes your organization appear untrustworthy. Your organization should be committed to protecting any information that a customer shares. Even if not explicitly stated, customers assume that you will protect their information. Sharing that information with third-parties is a direct violation of that trust. The price you pay for breaking that trust extends far beyond what a customer thinks about your email program. Customers will start to wonder what else your organization does behind their back with their private information. Clearly, this is not what you want your customers to think about your organization. Additionally, if email service providers (e.g. Mail Chimp, Vertical Response, Constant Contact, Infusionsoft) find out that you’ve shared your list, or worse yet, emailed a list of people who have not explicitly indicated that they want emails from the organization, they will flag your account and the account that owns the list as spammers. Once you are flagged as a spammer, none of the emails you send, or that the organization you’ve shared a list with sends, will never ever make it to the customer’s inbox again. And if that isn’t enough; sharing your list annoys people. Think about your personal experience with unsolicited email, like when you wonder how a company you’ve never heard of got into your inbox. Does it annoy you? Yes. Do you open it? No. So why risk annoying your customers with an email that they’re probably not going to open anyway?

HOW DO I BACK-SCRATCH AND SHARE CLIENTS?

If a partner organization wants to use your list, or if you want to borrow another organization’s email list, you have some options:

• Ask the organization whose list you want to use to send an email on your behalf. They can send a dedicated email asking their customers to check out whatever it is you’re trying to “sell.”
• Or, better yet, they can incorporate a callout about your organization into an email that they’re already planning to send out.

That callout can encourage their subscribers to check out your organization and become a subscriber themselves. This approach builds trust among consumers for both the sending organization and the partnering organization. Send an email to your customers with a callout about the organization that wants to use your list. In this case, you should try to incorporate their callout into an email that you are already planning to send (e.g. monthly e-newsletter) and that’s full of relevant content that the subscriber is expecting to see. An email that’s sent from your program, that’s all about another organization could still be considered spam. Tying partner content into your regular email communications will certainly make it appear less spammy and help ensure that your readers know you have their best interest in mind.

HOW DO I GROW MY LIST?

Email your own list and let them know of the event of the business you want to share lists with. Make sure the link to subscribe is in the email. Make sure they are doing the same for you as well. If you do not post on social media or blog, start immediately. If you are wanting a list of another business who has taken the time to grow their list and/or hire someone to help them, asking them to give you their list is not ethical and frankly, incredibly lame. Make sure you have a sign up form on your website and Facebook page. Make signing up for your email a requirement for a promotion discount or product (where it is allowed!) If you have an event that includes other businesses, have one main email subscriber list when they check in and that can be shared with everyone participating because the person sharing their email knows that is the case.

If you are not sure, then don’t do it is the general rule. Ask yourself how you would feel if a business did this to you and can you really afford that?