|
The Brainsnack
Number 19
Winning the Inbox battle for relevancy.
Keeping your email marketing viable.
By Tom Barnes
May 30, 2003
Page
1
2
3
The Post Office generated a rare profit from unsolicited mail this year
while many ISPs struggled to raise their revenue line. There is a lesson
here that is not lost on the likes of AOL, Earthlink, and the monster
MSOs. Namely, that they'll be happy to help identify spam. Spam will simply
be defined as mail from people, not in your address book and not paying
your provider to deliver to you.
But perhaps I'm forecasting a little aggressively. We're not going to
see that happen until--oh wait--AOL already does that now. MSN is minutes
behind them. But this is really only the beginning.
Now robust, effective software apps exist to help people dodge your well-crafted
email solicitation. Tools that read your “from" line and look for a number
string known as unique identifiers (campaigns can't be tracked without
one). Software that looks for words in the subject line like “hot", “new",
“free", or “money". Recently J. D. Biersdorfer wrote in the New York Times
about three of these tools: While JD wasn't too kind to we feeble-minded,
porn-mongering marketers, he was quite fond of three spam crushing clients:
The bad news for marketers (or good news if you don't like hitting your
delete key) is Mr. Biersdorfer liked 'em all because they worked.
Bottom line, if you are thinking you can acquire new clients with email—
forget it.
Seriously. If you get nothing from this article, get that. Forget buying
lists. The Inbox is a lousy place to start a customer dialog, unless you
don't mind associating your brand with Nigerian banking schemes, penis
enlargements, and all the Xanax you can eat.
Open rates are dubious now, as are opt-out numbers. People aren't opting
out anymore, they just flag you as spam and their email client takes care
of the rest. For this reason, opt-out metrics are more dubious than they've
ever been.
Page
1
2
3
To get the latest from MEDIATHINK in your e-mail click here.
| 
Feed Your Head
