If you’ve been climbing the slippery slope of half-baked permission known as opt out, you almost certainly need to clean up your list. Opt out generally means you collected addresses any way you could-- buying lists, scavenging business cards, whatever it took. If the subscriber never specifically unsubscribed, you assumed permission.

Opt out, unfortunately, leads to high bounce rates and spam complaints-- the very things that guarantee a spot on ISP blacklists.

Here’s how to clean up your list. Send a "re-opt-in" email and remove all users who do not reconfirm their interest. Let me repeat that: remove all users who do not reconfirm their interest. And again: remove all users who do not reconfirm their interest.

Make sure your opt-in invitation addresses privacy concerns and sells your newsletter’s benefits. More importantly, segment your list and distribute your opt-in invitation to no more than 5,000 to 10,000 recipients at a time, spread out over one or two weeks. This minimizes the ISPs’ too-many-bounces red flag.

While you’re at it, vary your subject lines and test out different offers to reengage recipients. Since you’re segmenting your campaign anyway, why not use this exercise to determine which offers and messages get the best response?

At the end of your re-opt-in process, you’ll have a smaller -- but much more responsive -- list of people who really do want to hear from you.

Re-opt in action