Spammers

• Alan Ralsky (“Godfather of Spam”) – 51 months in federal prison for fraud and CAN-SPAM violations
• Sanford Wallace (“Spam King”) – $711 million in damages to Facebook for CAN-SPAM violations
• Lance Atkinson (New Zealand’s King of Spam and leader of world’s largest spam gang) – $15.5 million default judgment for CAN-SPAM violations.  Atkinson’s US accomplice agreed to pay $800,000 and faces possible jail time.
• Tagged.com – paid $750,000 in settlements with New York and Texas AGs for hijacking users email addresses “for the purpose of blasting them with spam”

Hidden Continuity Plans

• Commerce Planet – $19.7 million FTC consent decree (suspended if principals pay approx. $1 million) for marketing free” Internet auction kits, which automatically charged unwitting consumers $59.95 a month for enrollment in an “online supplier” program for Internet auctions.
• NextClick Media – $315,000 fine and FTC consent decree for offering “free trials” of bogus smoking cessation patches and debited consumers’ bank accounts for hidden $99.95 continuity program.

EU Safe Harbor Certification

• Multiple Companies – FTC consent decrees for continuing to represent in privacy policy that the companies were self-certified under EU Safe Harbor program when their certification had lapsed.

E-mail, which is well into its teens, is still viewed as a cheap, yet effective marketing channel. But as the medium starts to mature, sales and marketing teams may have to ramp up spending on their e-mail programs in order to separate their brands from the pack, reach new prospects and cultivate existing clients.

However, devoting more of your budget to e-mail campaigns is just half the battle to garnering decent returns. Many companies tend to create one-size-fits-all e-mail programs that get blasted regardless of who the end-user may be (like a howitzer being deployed to shoot an army of gnats).

“You need to segment and target appropriately and often it takes more time and resources to make that happen,” said Nicholas Einstein, director of strategic and analytic services for Datran Media, a marketing services and technology company whose clients include Entrepreneur.com, Lycos and ValueClick. E-mail programs need “to be a) automated, b) segmented and c) perfectly integrated with [your] Web site to ensure you’re getting people right when they’re signing up.”

Overall, 58% of marketers said they planned to increase their e-mail budgets in 2009, according to a survey  released in April by Datran Media. The company took the pulse of more than 3,000 industry executives from Fortune 1,000 companies and interactive agencies.

Einstein, who blogs at “the other einstein” (hats off), said that e-mail programs should feature relevant content, such as white papers, links (and invitations) to Webinars, information about upcoming virtual events “or any drivers of leads.” But smart packaging of content is a nonstarter unless it is properly segmented.

Indeed, segmentation is key. Open rates for segmented versus non-segmented campaigns are as much as 20% higher on average for the first 30 days, according to MarketingSherpa’s “Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2008.”

Click rates for segmented versus non-segmented campaigns are doubly high for the first 30 days, with a slight increase for 60-90 days, while click rates for segmented versus non-segmented campaigns are five times higher the last 90 days of the year, the study said.

Because they are on the front line, sales execs can be the innovators of new e-mail programs depending on the audiences’ needs. But executing and managing the execution of email campaigns is a job that’s increasingly being left to marketing.

Einstein said he is seeing more and more e-mail campaigns that are centralized. Clients “are taking away some autonomy  sales teams have had in the e-mail space, because, quite honestly, you get into situations about compliance and CAN-SPAM issues, and it can get hairy having sales teams sending out promotional messaging” to people who have potentially unsubscribed to the material.

The happy medium is when IT can integrate sales and marketing and provide a bridge between inbound and outbound efforts. “We have seen a lot of success launching  triggered and serialized messaging programs based on behavioral targeting,” Einstein said. “When prospects are taking action on a Web site, it’s important to leverage this behavior to target relevant messaging that nurture the lead and help foster sales.”

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In upholding the conviction of two porn spammers under CAN-SPAM, the 9th Circuit briefly addressed the question of private domain registrations which conceal registration information absent a subpoena.  In U.S. v. Kilbride, the court stated clearly that “private registration for the purpose of concealing the actual registrant’s identity would constitute “material falsification’” under the CAN-SPAM Act.

While this is the first ruling of its kind, it is consistent with the FTC view that a recipient should be able to look up the domain a from address. Marketers in the 9th Circuit states (AK, AZ, CA, HI, NV, MT, OR, WA) should reevaluate the benefits from such a registration service in light of this ruling.

On a related note, a court rejected an attempt by  infamous spamigator Dan Balsam to hold TuCows liable for a default judgment he obtained against one of its private registrants.  More info:  Eric Goldman’s Technology & Marketing Law Blog; BNA’s E-Commerce & Tech Law Blog.

Email Cases in Brief
The Free Speech Coalition ended its four year legal battle against Utah’s child email registry law by declaring victory – as the law has proven a financial disaster for both Michigan and Utah and no state has joined their ranks in the intreim - and dismissing its complaint.  See Direct Magazine article.

A California appeals court held that the Song-Beverly Credit Card Act was not preempted by the CAN-SPAM Act.  In Powers v. Pottery Barn, the court reversed a dismissal finding that Song-Beverly had nothing to do with the regulation of email and was outside the scope of CAN-SPAM’s preemption.

FDA Goes After Deceptive Labeling
A revived Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced it is investigating the use of deceptive food labels that create an impression a food product is healthier than it really is.  The FDA is using increased funding to reverse what Commissioner Hamburg described as “a steep decline in enforcement” that resulted in “serious violations have gone unaddressed for far too long. These include violations involving product quality, adulteration, and misbranding; false, misleading, or otherwise unlawful labeling; and misleading advertising.”  More info:  Reuters article on enforcement effort.

Toyota Terror Campaign Triggers Lawsuit

A Saatchi and Saatchi campaign for Toyota’s Matrix using “Punk’d” marketing methods that involved repeated email messages that led the recipient to believe they were being stalked by a violent British man has yielded a $10 million lawsuit against the agency and its client.  Not exactly the viral effect they were hoping for. See AdAge and Canadian Business articles.

Sears, Overstock Pay Price for Inadequate Consumer Notice

Sears initiated a program where consumers visiting Sears.com and Kmart.com could become members of the “My SHC Community.” Members were paid $10 to participate in return for downloading a toolbar that would track their “online browsing.” The toolbar did more than that, however, collecting information such as the contents of shopping carts, online bank statements, drug prescription records etc. while also tracking offline behavior. According to the FTC it was “[o]nly in a lengthy user license agreement, available to consumers at the end of a multi-step registration process, did Sears disclose the full extent of the information the software tracked.” As part of the consent decree, Sears agreed to destroy all data collected.

The decision in Hines v. Overstock.com focused on the enforceability of so-called “browsewrap” agreements where a consumer does not have to manifest consent in any form, but rather is bound to the terms by using the site. The Overstock site had a link to the site terms and conditions at the bottom of the first page and on the purchasing some language that all purchases were subject to these terms. Overstock sought to enforce an arbitration clause in the agreement, but the court held it to be unenforceable since the consumer had no knowledge of it.

Overstock’s mistake, aside from letting a $30 issue turn into a federal case, was to ignore the FTC’s 4 P’s for disclosures: Prominence, Presentation, Placement and Proximity. The provision likely would have been enforced had Overstock simply made the provision larger and/or even closer to the purchase button or used a clickwrap agreement where the consumer clicks to confirm acceptance (often as part of a purchase).

The California Court of Appeals for the Fourth District recently addressed the preemptive scope of the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003 (“CAN-SPAM,” 15 USC § 7701 et seq) in Powers v. Pottery Barn, Inc., 2009 WL 2991358 (Cal.App. 4 Dist., Sept. 21, 2009), a consumer class action filed against Pottery Barn in California state court.

Powers alleged she visited a Pottery Barn store, selected an item to buy and, when she used her credit card to buy it, was asked to provide an e-mail address. Powers gave the sales clerk her e-mail address and saw the clerk enter the address into the store’s electronic cash register.  Powers then brought suit against Pottery Barn under California’s Song-Beverly Credit Card Act of 1971 (Song-Beverly) which limits the information that may be requested of a consumer when the consumer uses a credit card to transact business.  In particular, Song-Beverly prohibits businesses from requesting or requiring credit card customers to provide “personal identification information,” such as their addresses and telephone numbers.

Pottery Barn moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that regulation of the collection of e-mail addresses was preempted by CAN-SPAM.

Some background:  CAN-SPAM was enacted in 2003. Under CAN-SPAM the sender of any unsolicited “commercial electronic mail message” is subject to civil liability unless the e-mail contains: a mechanism which permits the addressee to “opt-out” or unsubscribe from further e-mails, an accurate identification of the sender, an accurate subject line, a physical address of the sender and a warning label if the e-mail contains adult content. CAN-SPAM also makes it a crime to send e-mail through a computer without the permission of the owner of the computer (“open-relay”) or place false information in the e-mail header.

By its terms, CAN-SPAM pre-empts any state law that “specifically regulates the use of electronic mail to send commercial messages.”

The trial court agreed with Pottery Barn and dismissed Powers’ complaint, ruling that Powers’ claims were preempted by CAN-SPAM.  Powers appealed.

The California Court of Appeals reversed, finding that while CAN-SPAM pre-empts any state law that “specifically regulates the use of electronic mail to send commercial messages,” it does not pre-empt state laws that “are not specific to electronic mail” and have only incidental impact on e-mail use.  Because Song-Beverly’s regulation of what may be asked of credit card customers is not a regulation of what can be sent in commercial e-mails and is not in any manner specific to e-mail, Song-Beverly is not pre-empted by CAN-SPAM.

The Powers Court got this one right.  While CAN-SPAM’s preemption clause is broad in application – it preempts all state statutes and regulations that purport to regulate commercial e-mail and saves from preemption only those state statutes or regs that target “fraud or deception” – it is narrow in scope because a state statute or reg is only preempted in the first place if it specifically regulates the use of commercial e-mail.  As the Powers court pointed out, incidental effect on commercial e-mail is not enough to invoke CAN-SPAM preemption.  In fact, across the board, every attempt to expand CAN-SPAM’s preemption clause to state statutes which do not specifically regulate e-mail has failed.  See, e.g., Ferron v. SubscriberBase Holdings, Inc., 2009 WL 650731 (S.D.Ohio Mar 11, 2009) (“[b]ecause OCSPA is a consumer protection statute, not limited to matters of electronic mail, CAN-SPAM does not preempt Ohio Revised Code § 1345.02).

This past weekend, I received spam email from a local entrepreneur who has recently completed a small business program.  This entrepreneur didn’t take the time to know who she was emailing and copied a number of businesses to the same email.

Yes, this was definitely spam by its very definition because it was both unsolicited and it was bulk email — in other words, there were multiple recipients of the same email.

An electronic message is deemed to be “spam” when:

(1)  the recipient’s personal identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally applicable to many other potential recipients;

AND
 
(2)  the recipient has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable permission for it to be sent.

As we all know spam is about consent, not about content.  The content of the email is irrelevant; all that matters, by law, is that the message was sent unsolicited and in bulk.  This is what makes it spam. 

Industry Canada states that any unsolicited email sent to the email address of an individual who did not consent to receive that email could be in violation of the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and, possibly, other substantially similar provincial legislation.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has determined that a business email address is personal information and, therefore, protected by PIPEDA. Such information can be collected and used without consent, but only for its intended purposes.

There was a recent situation involving Suzanne Morin and her business email address.  Her email address was collected from an online professional association membership directory. She filed a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner because of unsolicited email solicitations she received from a third party.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner found that one’s business email address is, for the purposes of PIPEDA, personal information. The Office found that the collection and subsequent use of Ms. Morin’s email address for commercial email solicitation was done without her consent and in contravention of the Act.

Other countries have anti-spam regulations.

The United States has their CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing).  Australia enacted their Spam Act 2003.  The United Kingdom has their Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.  France enacted the Loi pour la confiance dans l’économie numérique 2004. And the European Union has their EC Directive 2003/58/EC.

In the spirit of Dave Carroll and his public commentary on Ms. Irlweg and United Airlines, I would like to state that the Ms. Chesebrough’s and financial and business solution start ups of this world should brush up on why spam is not welcome by business people either at their personal email address or their business address.

Lord knows that when the Electronic Commerce Protection Act Bill — also known as the ECPA — is passed into law in Canada, senders suspected of spamming will experience harsher penalties than the harsh penalties already in place with CAN-SPAM in the U.S. 

In fact, once the ECPA bill becomes law, it won’t just be Internet Service Providers who can sue spammers.  Yes, in Canada, individuals will be allowed to sue senders suspected of spamming and while the fine is currently set at $200 per item, class action suits could spell the end of businesses that do not take the time to take current and future legislation seriously.

Besides, who would want to do business with someone who so easily disregards the current laws of the land?

Elyse Bruce
Creator
MIDNIGHT IN CHICAGO

After First Insisting No One Was Receiving Unsolicited Emails From The White House.

We have seen this pattern all through out this administration. Lie first, tell the truth only after all lies have been exhausted. In regards to the unsolicited email in which the White House had vehemently denied sending out..more…

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by Seattle resident James S. Gordon Sr. A three-judge panel from the Court upheld the lower court ruling that Gordon lacked standing to sue online marketing business Virtumundo. The panel noted that under the US federal CAN-SPAM Act, lawsuits can only be brought by select law-enforcement agencies and providers of an internet access service. Read the full decision here.

The Court characterized Gordon as “professional plaintiff”. He made it a habit to set up multiple email accounts, which he would then sign up for a multitude of online promotions and competitions for the purpose of receiving spam emails. He then configured these email accounts to automatically send demand letters to spammers for $500 in statutory damages per unsolicited email. On this point US Appeals Court Judge Ronald M. Gould wrote:

“For a person seeking to operate a litigation factory, the purported harm is illusory and more in the nature of manufactured circumstances in an attempt to enable a claim. In my view, manufactured claims should not be tolerated absent a clear endorsement from Congress. Such claims would not likely have been recognized at common law, and Congress here wisely excluded them”

Unlike the US CAN-SPAM Act, Industry Canada’s proposed Electronic Commerce Protection Act (full statute here) does allow a private individual a right of action against spammers. This case certainly raises the question of whether opening the courts up to private actions against spammers would lead to these “professional plaintiffs” and “litigation factories” that were specifically excluded from the American CAN-SPAM Act.

Creating a successful enewsletter isn’t rocket science, but sometimes it feels like it. Here are a few tips that can take you from good to great.

1. Catchy Content

We’re all inundated by email, so keep your enewsletter from ending up in the trash folder by offering value to your readers. Tips, actionable advice, and discounts on products and services can all improve open rates. Do your research ahead of time and ask readers what they want. Their answers may surprise you.

2. Sensible Subject Lines

Most readers will scan the subject line in about two seconds. Make sure yours counts. It should be succinct and descriptive. Save the clever headlines for the enewsletter itself and use the subject line to get readers in the door.

3. Promises, Promises

If subscribers have signed up for your enewsletter because you’ve promised “insider” information about eco travel or energy-saving tips for the home, you better deliver. Luring them in under false pretenses is sure to result in one thing: Unsubscribe.

4. Friendly Formatting

Your enewsletter may be a work of art, but if it doesn’t display properly in a variety of common email software applications, you’ll be at a huge disadvantage. Be sure to check it on Gmail, Outlook, Mac Mail, Yahoo! Mail, and other popular programs. And make sure that it’s easy to ready even if graphics are turned off.

5. Can Spam

Every enewsletter footer should include easy unsubscribe/opt-out information and contact information. Not complying with the Can-Spam Act can result in serious penalties, not to mention irritated readers.

Here are some nice examples from MarketingSherpa of top-notch enewsletters and email marketing campaigns.

Looking for a reliable company that can distributed your enewsletter? Here are some that we like:

Constant Contact

Lyris

MadMimi

MyEmma

THIS ARTICLE IS ONLY THE AUTHOR’S OPINION. IT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITH NO EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES. IT IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE AND YOU ARE ADVISED TO CONTACT AN ATTORNEY LICENSED IN YOUR JURISDICTION WITH REGARDS TO YOUR SPECIFIC SITUATION.

Lately I have been receiving more and more spam messages on my Twitter account. It got me to wondering whether this practice violates the CAN-SPAM Act and if so, what could be done about it. I have noticed that spammers have started using shortened web addresses to hide their true identity. The FTC has prosecuted spammers for sending unauthorized text messages. It seems to me that spam is spam regardless of the way in which it gets online. Myspace and Facebook have both successfully sued spammers under CAN-SPAM and for Terms of Service violations. The last time that I looked, Twitter.com’s Terms of Service prohibit using it “for any illegal or unauthorized purpose”. They also require that users agree “not create or submit unwanted email to any Twitter members (‘Spam”).

CAN-SPAM applies to anyone, who sends commercial email in the United States. If an internet marketer solicits business, or sells goods / services to United States residents, United States law applies to those activities.

The CAN-SPAM ACT places several requirements on commercial e-mailers. CAN-SPAM is an acronym for “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003. It covers those e-mails whose primary purpose is advertising or promoting a commercial product or service, including web site content. Violations can be subject to a $16,000 fine and trigger other false or misleading advertising laws. Here are some of CAN-SPAM’s requirements.

* It bans using false or misleading header information, as well as, using deceptive subject lines.

* It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method and provides specific requirements for your opt-out method.

* You must specify that your email is an advertisement and include your valid physical postal address.

There are other penalties for those commercial e-mailers who illegally harvest email addresses from other Web sites or services, use “dictionary attacks”, register multiple accounts to send spam, or relay emails through a computer or network without permission.

Finally it allows the United States Department of Justice to seek criminal penalties, including imprisonment, for commercial emailers who do or conspire to: use a computer to retransmit a commercial email to mislead recipients or Internet access service about the true origin of the message; register multiple accounts or domain names using falsified identities; or, falsely represent themselves as owners of multiple IP addresses used to send commercial email messages.

Here’s why I believe that it would be impossible to comply with CAN-SPAM on Twitter. Twitter only allows 140 characters per post. To comply with CAN-SPAM’s requirements, a person must provide the necessary disclosures, as well as an opt out method. Then, in the remaining characters, he or she would need to include their link and create interesting content. It would be even harder to post “Adult” content or links, because the act requires additional disclosures.

By: Julia Gulevich

The Advantages of Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the premier and highly liked forms of marketing among e-business marketers. There are various reasons for this. Email marketing has advantages as well as dark sides.

It is much less expensive than other marketing options like direct mail or newsletters. For a fraction of the cost email marketers can send their marketing message to a number of prospects.

Email marketing provides a high return on investment when done in the right manner. In fact it rates second only to search engine marketing among the marketing activities done on the internet.

Email marketing is instant. Email arrives at your inbox instantly as opposed to mail that can take days to be delivered.

Websites operate on the pull principle. On the other hand, email marketing is done as pushing the product to the consumer and operates on the push side of marketing.

The advantages of email marketing include the ability to track email messages and the user responses to them. This is done through web bugs, bounce messages, click-throughs, unsubscribes, read receipts etc. Through these open rates, positive and negative responses can be measured and sales can be correlated with marketing.

More than half of internet users check email on any given day. This is a big advantage of email marketing.

Email Marketing – The Dark Side

Often email marketing messages are sent without considering what the reaction of the recipient might be. Unsolicited mail that is sent in bulk is considered spam.

Illicit email marketing came after legitimate email marketing. In the early days of the internet, commercial operations were not allowed to use email. Now days, legitimate email marketers have a hard task establishing themselves as such with all the illegitimate email marketers trying to establish themselves as legitimate.

Often it is difficult to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate email operations.  Spammers try to represent themselves as legitimate marketers. The Direct Marketers association pressurizes legislators to allow activities which many would consider spam. These include sending of opt-out unsolicited promotional emails. Sometimes, due to the sheer volume of spam email legitimate commercial email to which the consumer has subscribed gets mistaken as spam. This is especially common when the two emails have a similar appearance e.g. flashy HTML and graphics.

Spam filters have become essential to most users. Often legitimate commercial email gets caught up in these spam filters. It is rare that email users complain about this.

Companies considering launching a commercial email promotional program must make sure that this does not violate the CAN-SPAM act as well as other laws of the land.

Email marketing has both advantages and dark sides to it. To profit the most from it, make sure you stay on the right side of the law and commercial regulations. Happy Marketing!

When it comes to prospecting, a time-honored sales process for obtaining new customers, salespeople have a difficult task on their hands. There are several communication vehicles to use — email, phone, snail mail, in-person — but which one is best? The answer really depends on industry, budget, length of sales cycles, and a host of other variables, but I’d like you to consider one method that’s gotten a bad rap over the past few years: cold call email.

When you combine CAN-SPAM regulations with Do Not Call registries and already swollen email Inboxes, cold call emailing faces a bit of an uphill battle. However, all prospecting techniques have their pluses and minuses, and it shouldn’t necessarily be dismissed out of hand. Email is one of few communication mediums that can have multimodal and cross-platform access… try getting a postcard mailer to do that. Also, it enables prospectors to link primary communication with secondary communication sources, enhancing the recipient’s experience and making the process measurable for the salesperson. The drawbacks, of course, include the perception of sending unwanted email and trying to sell something that hasn’t been specifically asked for. There are three questions about this practice that will help guide your decision:

1. Is it legal?
2. Is it ethical?
3. Is it a best practice?

First, the legality issue. Does cold call email violate CAN-SPAM legislation because it’s unsolicited? No. CAN-SPAM refers to unsolicited bulk email, but if you send a one-to-one personal email introducing yourself to someone, that’s not considered spam. There are many sources online that can give you helpful hints for sending emails that are non-salesy.

Second, the ethical issue. Personally, I approach all interpersonal interactions the same way. Integrity, honesty, empathy, and honor are of utmost importance to me, and I use these virtues to guide every aspect of my business.

Third, the best practice issue… difficult to say because many companies have either abandoned the practice or are spamming their prospects. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email has an ROI of $51.45 for every $1 spent, so its usefulness beyond outbound e-communication cannot be denied.

Bottom line: there are positives and negatives to cold call emailing, but it deserves a second look. Use your best judgment. experiment with a sample group, test/measure the results, and decide whether it’s right for you. Now go out there and get ‘em, tiger.

For the past several years I have been following SpamAssassin’s rule set and I am always amazed by how many seemingly innocuous things (e.g. “Dear x”) can make perfectly harmless emails come under suspicion.

The vast majority of issues come from poorly coded/authenticated emails. This can either be the fault of the email’s designer (in the case of poor HTML) or the the platform (infrastructural issue). Some common HTML issues include:

1. Too much code (in terms of your code to text ratio)
2. Too little text (in terms of your text to image ratio) — you get penalized for being succint if you also use images
3. Poorly written code (title set to “untitled”; unclosed tags, etc.) — apparently spammers cannot code well
4. Larger or smaller than ordinary fonts — stick to something similar to 10-12pt
5. “Shouting” — too many words in all caps; excessive use of red or blue font
6. Hiding the unsubscribe text by making the font the same color as the background — a shady practice that would only result in spam complaints anyway

Here are a few highlights that I often see being violated that you would never think about from a SPAM perspective. It is interesting that what is often thought of as a best practice (explaining how/why someone was subscribed  and how he or she could unsubscribe) must be worded carefully to avoid a penalty: 

1. Email contains ‘Dear (something)’ — so much for being friendly
2. Claims you can be removed from the list 
3. Talks about how to be removed from mailings
4. Removal phrase right before a link

It is humorous though quite sad that email has been somewhat ruined because of all of the bad apples who take advantage of unsuspecting inboxes. Twitter, unfortunately is likely to follow if unchecked.

See the full list of Spam Assassin Rules

I came across an article the other day in the New York Times Bits, reporting that global spam traffic has crept back up to about 94% of all email volume, after a steep decline last year attributed to the shut-down of a rogue ISP.

When I have introductory discussions on email delivery with prospects/new customers I start with a very simple description of the context surrounding email delivery. It goes something like this: “ISPs have a very large sample of data – known spam attacks – to reference constantly. Smart people and smart programs analyze this data and establish clear patterns and flags that say ‘This Is How Spammers Behave.’ They apply the patterns and flags as algorithms that inspect every piece of email the ISP receives and make a simple comparison – does your email look like spam, or does it look like legitimate email.”

At least the ISPs are a bit more objective and formulaic. Less predictable is the consumer, who may already be on your house email list. Though without an analytical approach, the consumer is making similar evaluations every day.

There is a great study released by MarketingSherpa last year that I use in many of my presentations. Co-sponsored by MarketingSherpa and Q Interactive, the study indicates consumers’ interpretation of “spam” is far different than that of marketers and even ISPs. Here’s some humbling data: 86% of the consumers in the study clicked the “spam” or “junk” button for one of these three reasons:

• “Email received was not of interest”
• “I receive too much email from the sender”
• “I receive too much email from all senders”

None of these reasons have anything to do with the sender’s reputation, their opt-in practices, their authentication protocols, accreditation or certification, or how the ISP evaluates the legitimacy of the email.

Instead, this has everything to do with legitimate emails actually looking a lot like spam to the consumer, because the marketer sends too frequently and won’t invest the time or care to create relevant content that stands out.

The consumer, through thousands of experiences with inbox-cluttering spam, has established their own pattern of association, which goes something like this – “If you add to my inbox clutter with volume and don’t respect my time by sending relevant content, I see you as nothing more than part of the problem.”

There are few loyalties in the inbox. The respect of the consumer has to be earned over and over again, and can’t simply be assumed because of a previous opt-in. Spammers do not try to earn the respect of the consumer, and are out to make a quick buck. If your email practices match more closely to this pattern, in the eyes of the consumer you are a spammer.

A sobering thought.

As discussed in the previous post, setting up your objectives for an email marketing campaign is the first step to take. Once you know your objectives, you will be better equipped to develop your sending list. The sending list criteria will depend on your objectives.

Mass emailing is over… Welcome target emailing!

It is shown that you will get better results if you target your marketing email to the right customer or prospect specially nowadays when customers are bombarded with tons of emails from various companies.

How to target your email to the right audience?

It is pretty simple in theory. You will choose your mailing list depending on your mailing objectives.

Let’s take some practical examples:

-           you want to promote an upgrade for one of your product/service, in this case it is recommended to target only customers that have already used the previous product. These customers already know your previous product and therefore they will be more inclined to purchase the upgrade.

-          You want to promote a service only dedicated to women, in this case, it is recommended to target only women in your database.

-          You want to promote a product that is produced for elderly, therefore in this case, it is recommended to target only elderly in your database.

-          Etc.

This seems very simple but I can tell you that not everybody doing email marketing tend to respect this simple strategy.

What to do if you feel that you don’t have the right information in your database to send a targeted email?

Well, it is certainly not recommended to mass mail because you don’t have the right information in your database. However you could certainly do two things:

-          Improve your data collection process to get additional information about your customers/prospects

-          Send a dedicated email to your database in order to collect more information. It could be either a “update your profile” email or a customer survey. I will give you example of customer survey and “update your profile” emails in upcoming posts.

Can I purchase or rent an email list from specialized company?

I don’t have anything special against this type of company who rent or sell emailing list. However from my past experience, I can tell you that it does not give you a great return on investment. You could even end up spending more money than you will make by using a rented emailing list. Each time we tried it, each time it was not worth the spending. In my opinion, this is totally normal. The customers part of these rented list don’t know your company, they probably don’t know your products, they don’t know how you got their email addresses. Therefore how can you expect someone to take any action from an email when they don’t know anything about you?

In addition,  the use of rented list can also do a lot of dammage on your deliverability and reputation with ISP ( such as yahoo, gmail, hotmail,etc.) due to the fact that customers will certainly use the “mark as spam” option available through their ISP. This could have an impact on future emailing you are planning and it could block you forever with certain ISPs.