There are a lot of people in this world who have a devil-be-damned attitude toward taking risks. This can be a good thing. For example, if you harbor dreams of striking out on your own and creating your own business but are put off by the uncertain economic climate, this can be a great thing. On the other hand, if you carry this attitude into every aspect of how you do business, such as email marketing to your customers without regard for spam filter software, this could be a bad thing.

Anti spam techniques are put into place by ISPs eager to protect their customers from unwanted emails filling up their inboxes. But you don’t have to be a legitimate spammer to be flagged by anti spam email software. Therefore you have to take every preventative measure possible, including insisting that your email list subscribers go through an opt-in process, to limit the risk of getting blacklisted.

You can have your IP address or your domain name (if your domain name is unique to your company) blacklisted if your marketing list recipients complain to their ISP about you or flag your messages as spam. This isn’t always intentionally done – some people honestly forget they signed up your marketing campaign – but the effects can be damaging and could render your marketing efforts totally ineffective if you're unable to reach a major segment of your subscribers.

So if you’re the type who likes to run your business like you run your life – full throttle without regard to consequences – you could be shooting yourself in the foot. When it comes to operating a business, especially one that’s heavily reliant on email marketing, it pays to proceed with caution.