“As we progressively move to less and less personal forms of communications — from handwritten letter, to targeted direct mail appeal, to email blast –we gain reach and increased ROI, but face the danger of disengaging from our customers.” -MediaPost

One of the inherent challenges facing company emails, is the risk of being categorized as just another annoying spam. Research and common sense tell us that consumers want to be treated as people, not as data to be passed around from company to company, overused and abused.

“They (consumers) reward marketers with a track record of providing valuable and useful emails in the past, and ignore emails that didn’t, even when they recognize the brand and email sender.”-MediaPost

So where does that leave a business’s need to increase the reach of their emails? It’s hard to believe companies selling each other email lists is a valid, long term business model. And once again, common sense and research are telling us this model is going to be less and less viable as time goes on.

In a perfect world, a company would build their email list only with consumers that have shown a proven interest. The emails that get delivered would be interesting, wanted and relevant to recipients. And in turn, the people receiving your company’s email are receptive and willing to spread the message. How’s that for good email Karma?