Disposable Email Addresses



I recently had a couple of users signup and download a white paper and my follow up email to the same users the very next day started bouncing from the id. The strange part was that in spite of a double opt-in registration mechanism in place, I seem to have ended up with email addresses that were valid at sign up but invalid soon after.

A little bit of googling on the domain name of the email addresses led me to
mintemail.com. They offer a nifty little service to it's users where they offer a disposable email address that's valid for 4 hours.

From a B2B marketers perspective this is a nightmare scenario as the Lead Capture campaigns could be capturing worthless contact info that expires in a few hours time.
It sure is a boon to someone who'd like to access whitepapers, surveys, case studies, podcasts...etc of a company anonymously.

Maybe it's time the email validation routine in the registration form also validates for domain names known to host disposable email addresses.

Converting your OptIn database to a social network


So you have a 20K Opt In database of contacts who are interested in what you have to offer on your site. Wouldn't it be great if you could create an environment where these contacts could network and collaborate on topics that you know they have interest in or on topics that you have to offer.

That's were you could leverage something like Ning to create a social network and send invites to your list encouraging them to join your Social Network on Ning. If you could nurture the network a little bit in the initial stages, it should grow into a self sustaining active network with a lot of users and user generated content. And this would provide you a great channel to showcase your brand, and also promote upcoming Events, products etc that you offer.

Email Marketer's Club is a great example of a niche social network on B2B Email Marketing powered by Ning.