Ever been falsely accused of spamming? It can be disheartening,
but don't let it stop you from using email as a marketing tool.
Recognize the risks, and take the precautions outlined here.
Most of us who have been involved in email marketing and publishing
for some time have been accused of spamming at one time or another. It's
one of the risks of the medium. You can whine, rant, and demand to know
who made these unfair "anti-business" rules, but it won't do a bit of
good.
Unwarranted spam complaints are possible even if you take extreme
care. You could be using a permission- based list that you have
carefully built up yourself, but some people (especially newer Internet
users) will forget or not even realize that they signed up. People will
sign up their friends (or enemies) without asking them. The husband will
sign up for your newsletter, but the wife will be checking the email the
day the newsletter is sent out.
If you're doing email cold-calling, you might take pains to find just
the right person to contact, and to personalize and customize the
messages. Unfortunately, there's still the chance that one of your
messages will go to an unusually sensitive person who will take offense.
People tend to feel differently about their email boxes than they do
about their postal boxes and telephones -- many Internet users get livid
about the invasion of privacy and theft of computing resources. And
they're in a position to do something about it by complaining to the ISP
of a suspected spammer.
This is one of the risks of email marketing (there are others, such
as technological retaliation and legal action), and it's possible that
one of your efforts could generate a complaint to your ISP.
Fortunately, most ISPs recognize the value of email marketing and
publishing and realize that it will sometimes generate unwarranted spam
complaints. So they set a threshold and won't take action against a
marketer unless complaints exceed that threshold. That was the issue in
this interesting court case:
In this case, an ISP has been trying to eject MonsterHut from its
service because of spamming. MonsterHut exceeded the ISP's 2% complaint
rate and got cut off. 2% is an extremely liberal complaint rate (that's
200 complaints out of 10,000 emails!), so you know MonsterHut blew it.
In fact, the day this news report came out, I received a spam email from
MonsterHut. I know it was a spam, because the address they sent to could
only have been obtained by the use of spammers' extractor software.
So I recommend that marketers and publishers continue to use email as
a marketing medium, but do everything they can to avoid generating
complaints. Here's a little maxim I've come up with:
"The risks of email marketing are directly proportional to the number
of people who don't want to receive your message."
So the risks can be minimized by adopting opt-in procedures in order
to upset as few people as possible (preferably nobody).
Many of us have had success by email cold-calling, as mentioned above
-- emailing people one at a time, using contact information derived from
Web sites. However, even this kind of communication can be interpreted
as spamming. Here are some steps to take to reduce the risks and show
courtesy:
Carefully research contact information on the prospect's Web
site, to make sure your approach is appropriate and that you are
reaching the right person.
Use a low-key, non-promotional subject line that won't sound
like spam.
Address the person by name if possible.
Don't just send everyone a one-size-fits-all promotional
message. Take the time to customize it.
You might be able to re-use content from one prospect to the
next, but avoid writing anything with a promotional sound to it.
Write in a natural, personal, conversational style.
Keep it brief.
Never use extractor software to find contact addresses. Many Web
sites contain email addresses that are not meant as contact
addresses. You will end up sending email to an address you shouldn't
be using.
Avoid the trappings of spam email messages, such as a claim that
your message is protected by some federal law.
As with any effort in business and marketing, email marketing has its
risks. But the benefits are worth taking the risk, as long as you
exercise a few reasonable precautions.
If you are are looking for a solution for your email marketing, newsletter marketing, mailing list management or email tracking, we recommend Nesox Email Marketer.
Click here to learn more about Nesox Email Marketer.
