I like your strategy for the use of your reply-DM. It'll be interesting to see what the perception will be, but the ones doing the auto DM will be in no position to counter yours. You should check analytics and put an opt in on pages you track so you can track the mailing list conversion. Perhaps do it on Twitter or Social Networking Etiquette so they'll become educated on the topic. - James Stratford

Bit.ly kind of serves this purpose. I'm using an older blog post, so any clicks on it will likely be from the auto-DMer. - Hutch Carpenter