Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Advertising available houses on this list

[Lia Olson (liajo]

I not only have no objection, I absolutely value such advertising.  It's one of
the things that is important to me, in fact.   Please don't stop letting us
know about housing opportunities within this movement.  

Lia


--- Racheli Gai <racheli [at] sonoracohousing.com> wrote:

> 
> As a long time member of this list, I wish to say that I have 
> absolutely no objection
> to people advertising coho houses for sale or rent on this list.
> 
> Racheli.
> 
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Craig Ragland [mailto:craigragland [at] gmail.com]
> > Sent: Saturday, April 05, 2008 10:53 AM
> > To: Cohousing-L
> > Subject: [C-L]_ On sending Cohousing-related permission-based emails
> >
> >
> > I recently received yet another broadcast about a cohousing group with 
> > units
> > for sale.
> >
> > Here is my reply (altered to protect the innocent) - following my 
> > reply, I
> > share a bit about the emails that Coho/US currently broadcasts to our
> > "permission-based" lists...
> > ---------------------------
> > Dear <<insert Name Here>>,
> >
> > With so many permission-based communication channels available, such as
> > Coho-L and the Cohousing Website, sending broadcasts out to people who 
> > did
> > not specifically request that information is easily categorized by 
> > their
> > recipients as SPAM.
> >
> > I note that three of your <<insert State Name Here>> Cohousing 
> > "competitors"
> > are advertising in the Cohousing Website Classified Ads:
> >
> > http://www.cohousing.org/mkt/marketplace
> >
> > These groups have the permission of their audience for their attention.
> >
> > While I'm happy to hear this news from <<insert Cohousing Group Name 
> > Here>>,
> > I suspect that some of those you reached out and touched may not be.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Craig
> > ---------------------------
> > The challenge for forming groups is that it is so tempting to just tell
> > everybody about what you are doing. This is only an issue because 
> > there are
> > so many forming groups. Personally, I'm being paid by Coho/US to care 
> > about
> > forming groups. There is almost nobody else being paid to care about 
> > you. I
> > keep hearing about, and receiving emails from people who are 
> > broadcasting
> > their mails to anybody and everybody, when such a small percentage of
> > recipients actually want to receive them. One of our challenges is 
> > that open
> > forums like Coho-L, the Cohousing Website Classified Ads and 
> > Directory, make
> > it so easy for people to harvest email addresses for their mailing 
> > lists.
> >
> > Ideally, we can all figure out ways to reach those people who do care, 
> > while
> > avoiding SPAMing lots of other cohousers, just because they might know
> > somebody that might serve your group's needs.
> >
> > I would like to share a bit about how Coho/US is dealing with our 
> > mailing
> > lists.
> >
> > Coho/US has a database of many thousands of email addresses, many with 
> > more
> > complete information that we sometimes use to contact folks via mail or
> > phone. We have just begun to use this database more extensively... we
> > recently hired Lisa Biskup from RoseWind Cohousing as our database 
> > manager.
> > It is my hope that Lisa, using our new CiviCRM-based contact management
> > system, will really get our act together so we can effectively 
> > communicate
> > with people who want to receive our mailings.
> >
> > The way permission-based email is intended to work is that we send a 
> > mailing
> > of a particular type to only those people who have requested 
> > information on
> > that topic. What this means - practically speaking (today) - is that
> > whenever you get an email from Coho/US on a topic you have no interest 
> > in,
> > you can open the email and click a link near the bottom of the email to
> > unsubscribe. After you do that, and then respond to the confirmation 
> > email,
> > you will no longer receive emails of that type from Coho/US - we, 
> > obviously,
> > have no control over any other group and some of them are very likely 
> > to
> > send you cohousing-related emails if your email address is publically
> > accessible, say in the Coho-L archives...
> >
> > To make this a little clearer, at the moment I'm writing this, another
> > Conference Bulletin sharing new information on the 2008 National 
> > Cohousing
> > Conference is currently in the process of being sent (I just checked 
> > and
> > 10.95% of that mail job is now done - its a BIG list and the mails are
> > dribbled out by our automated system to help avoid triggering 
> > automated SPAM
> > filters). The small number of people who Unsubscribed in response to
> > Conference Bulletin #1 (sent March 11) will not receive this email. 
> > Any of
> > you who do not want to receive future Conference Bulletins from 
> > Coho/US, can
> > also just open today's or any future Conference Bulletin mail and 
> > click the
> > Unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.
> >
> > This model is being used for all mailings from Coho/US. We really 
> > don't want
> > to annoy people with information they don't want to receive - it 
> > wastes your
> > valuable attention, and doing this lowers our value to you. As time 
> > goes on,
> > we'll also give you all the ability to visit your individual profile 
> > to make
> > changes about what you do receive from us - currently, all you can do 
> > is say
> > either (1) stop sending me emails of this type = "Unsubscribe" or (2) 
> > stop
> > sending me emails of any kind = "Opt Out" - you can take either of 
> > these
> > actions using the links at the bottom of every email that we send.
> >
> > Thanks for your ongoing attention and support - and hope to see you in
> > Boston on June 12 (have I mentioned we're having a National Cohousing
> > Conference?)
> >
> > Craig Ragland
> >
> > Coho/US executive director
> > http://www.cohousing.org
> > craig [at] cohousing.org
> >
> > New Earth Song project manager
> > http://www.NewEarthSong.com
> > craig [at] newearthsong.com
> >
> > Songaia Cohousing member
> > http://www.Songaia.com
> > craig [at] songaia.com
> >
> > Please try email first, include your phone number (w/time zone) - or 
> > give me
> > a call: 425-487-3550 (Pacific)... communicate!
> > _________________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
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> >
> >
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> >
> >
> 
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