Internet Mogal

Great discussion question. I’m still trying to figure this out. Over the past few days I’ve read several articles on the topic of email marketing and spamming. I’m a strong believer in the power email marketing has as an effective marketing tool. This is a great way to target your marketing message, products or services to the people who would opt-in to buy what you have to offer. Yet so many people don’t quite get how to do it effectively. Actually more people don’t know how to do it period and this lack of education or complete disregard for it, leaves legitimate marketers in a compromising position. How do we do our jobs without being pigeonholed as just another spammer?

For starters, I will admit that most of my job involves me creating lists for email marketing campaigns. There’s this talk about “opt-in” or “permission-based” email marketing but to digress for a minute and give you something to think about, ask “Do television commercials ask our permission to air during show breaks?” I’m just saying, it’s something to think about. The comparison I made is simply to illustrate a point. I don’t want to make light of spamming since it is a legitimate issue. I just hope we can start to re-evaluate how we view what is spam and what it is not. Personally, I identify spam as gibberish emails promoting Viagra or someone telling me they need me to help them cash an overseas check. Unfortunately spam now includes “unwanted” emails which is way too vague for the general population.

First of all, I have to say that most people who use the Internet are “simple-minded.” Now please don’t confuse “simple-minded” with dumb. That’s not what I’m trying to say. “Simple-minded” just means that people don’t process thought as they would in their regular lives or through normal conversations. “Simple-minded” internet users scan until they see a word that registers as something they want to see. So when they see something that doesn’t fit in with what they want, they disregard it as “I don’t want this.” This is concerning because the user does not stop to think “Did I sign up for this?” “Who is sending this to me?” The instant response is since I don’t readily process this as something I want right now it must the sender’s fault.

I work for an online start-up and we have an active membership of users who continuously flag our email correspondences as spam, despite having given us permission to email them. Rather than unsubscribe to the list they chose to sign up for in the first place, they identify our email as spam. I read an article that brings to light one interesting point about how spam is defined by the user. This was when I decided to give this topic some serious thought.

If the users define it one way and the marketers define it another way and the government defines it another, what is the best definition? In customer service they say the “customer” is always right. In this case, the customer would be the email recipient. I hope for this to open up a discussion regarding spam since it can be such a grey area for some marketers.

So back to the initial question. How does one do email marketing effectively?

1. Ask for permission. Sometimes it’s as simple as that. If you want to build a list of people who are not currently subscribe to your list, ask them if they would like to join. Rather than spamming them or sending “unsolicited” emails, it only makes sense to spend a few minutes well in advance and ask if you could add them to your list. You might turn a potential pissed off person into a loyal subscriber.
2. Piggy back with someone who has a strong subscriber list. If there’s an email list you’re a part of and you feel that their target audience is also yours, ask about sponsoring their next newsletter, see if you can get a banner ad or offer a special discount to those on their mailing list. When you direct this traffic to your website, be sure to have a “subscribe to my mailing list” form PROMINENT on your website pages. The best place is the upper-middle right hand side.
3. Do you have “subscribe to my mailing list” in your email signature? If not then you should. Anytime you send out an email it reminds the recipient that they can opt-in to your list at any time. Not everyone will go to your website. Make it easy for people to optin and you’ll be surprised at how many do.
4. Relevant content. This should go without saying. If your content is not important to the reader, why would they continue to read your emails, much less agree to joining your list? It’s not about you, it’s about your readers. You can have a 100k subscriber list but if you start sending out crap to them, watch how fast 100k turns into 10. Let’s forget for a second the people who unsubscribe. There’s going to be a handful of those who don’t unsubscribe but still don’t read your emails. The point of an email campaign is to get your audience to READ and DO SOMETHING whether it’s come to your website, make a purchase or forward the email to someone else. If you don’t have something useful for them, they won’t find YOU useful…period.

These simple tips may sound like common sense but you’d be surprised. Sometimes people need to hear over and over again what they already know so that they can remember to do the right thing when it comes to email campaigns. As marketers, we only shoot ourselves in the foot when we don’t follow best practice tactics for ourselves and our clients.