This is a guest post by Daniel Erhabor from FlutterMail.com.
Most internet marketers, old and new, are reluctant to use email marketing to its fullest because they are afraid of spamming. They are afraid of being labeled “spammers”. The truth is that there is a thin line between ethical email marketing and spamming.
In this article you will learn how to be the “Good Guy” in email marketing.
Before you learn how to be the good guy, you need to know what makes an email a spam message. When you know this, we can then highlight ways to avoid it and your messages will never be labeled as spam.
What Is Spamming?
Spamming is to forcefully send messages to a lot of people over the internet by
flooding their email addresses with copies of the same message without their request to receive such messages.
Spam is annoying.
Internet users frown at spam seriously. This is the reason measures have been put in place to penalize anyone doing it. For every legitimate email sent on the internet daily, there are far more spam messages sent. This sometimes make people and Anti-Spam systems list legitimate emails as spam.
The major characteristics of spam are:
• Spam Messages Are Unsolicited
Recipients of spam messages did not request to receive such messages. The email addresses are gathered through different means like email extraction from web pages. When the emails are gathered, spam messages will be sent to them.
• Spam Messages Are Selfish
In an ethical email, the recipients have the option to opt out of receiving such messages from the sender in the future. And when a recipient opts out, the sender respects the person’s decision and leaves him out.
Spammers do not respect their recipients’ decisions. Even when the recipient of the email opt outs from receiving messages from them, they will keep sending more messages to the person. Sometimes they change the content of the email or the sender address but it is the same spammer.
• Spam Messages Cannot Pass An Anti-Spam Verification System
Anti-Spam verification is a system that automatically sends a message back to the sender address when an unsolicited email is sent to the email address protected by the Anti-Spam system.
The sender will be required to manually prove that they are human by entering a verification code. When this is done, the message will be delivered to the email address it was sent to. Spam messages cannot pass Anti-Spam verification because the spammer will not have the time to manually enter the verification codes for all the returned messages sent by the Anti-Spam system since he might have spammed over one hundred thousand email addresses.
Now that you know what makes a spam message, let’s see how you can be the good guy in email marketing.
Deal Only With An Opt-In Email List
Create your own opt in form to allow people WILLINGLY join your list. If you do not know how to do this or you are too busy, just outsource it to someone who has the knowledge and time.
When people willingly join your list, you know that they are interested in what you have to offer. When you send them messages, they will know that they requested to receive messages from you. As such, they will not report your messages as spam
Send An Opt In Verification Email
When someone joins your mailing list, you should send an email to confirm that it was the owner of the email that signed up to your list. This can be done automatically by using an autoresponder service.
They will send an email immediately the person joins your list. The person will have to visit his email and click the verification link to start receiving messages from you. This opt-in verification will get you pass Anti-Spam verifications. Anti-Spam systems see this as legitimate and you will be whitelisted.
Add A Privacy Statement Close To Your Opt In Form
Adding a privacy statement close to your opt in form will go a long way and will also increase the number of subscribers you get. Your privacy statement should simply say that you will not sell or share subscribers email addresses with third parties. Many people are scared of joining one list and then receiving emails from 10 other promoters. So by adding a privacy statement your reputation will go up.
Respect Your Privacy Statement
You must respect and stand by what you wrote in your privacy statement. Don’t use your privacy statement to lure people to subscribe to your email list and then go against your privacy statement and start selling it to list brokers. If you do this, you will be flagged as a spammer. You must respect your privacy statement. Do not sell your subscribers email addresses to anyone just as you assured them in your privacy statement.
Respect Your Subscriber’s Decision
When you are sending emails to your list, always add the option for your subscribers to opt out of your list when they want. And, if at anytime they decide to opt out of your list, respect their decision. Don’t start sending them messages because if you do this, it will be spam.
That is it. Do these things and you will always be the good guy in email marketing. You will never be flagged as a spammer.
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When doing e-mail marketing make sure that you write for people and not for robots. Make your email sound compelling and neat. Also make it engaging and solicit feedback, for instance you can ask provoking questions so readers will interact with you or take time to connect with you.
If someone wants your emails or ads, then you should send them. But, if they clearly opt out or are unsolicited then you may be crossing the line. People get enough junk email throughout their day and they don’t need more.
If you have something good for them and they have requested it, then great.
It is quite necessary to know about the spamming activities while working online. You are right spammer can’t work manually.They only take help of software.I think if we abide by all the techniques that have explained in the article, we can be pioneers in email marketing.
Great timing! I just set up my newsletter and Opt-in, hopefully I can gain a lot of subscribers in a short period of time.
Daniel,
When going over the bad points of spam you missed the most important one.
Spam simply doesn’t work.
Having been a email marketer since a LONG time before I even started a website I can say that customer interaction and satisfaction always come first.
Double opt-in is just the start.
It is further important that you establish a “relationship” in your emails. This means send a lot more than “check this out” offers.
Send a large percentage of emails that offer nothing at all. Just purely informative (like a blog post).
Over time this will let people -know- you are about a lot more than just sales. Your emails will be something they learn from and look forward to. When you do that the sales will come when you DO have a good product or service to recommend.
If every mail Marketer would read and use this post Daniel, my blood pressure wouldn’t go up every time I check my inbox. I especially like the idea of having a privacy statement close to the opt-in form. Great article.
Opt out is always so important, but as for the spam I receive, I’m afraid to opt out because I think they’ll then recognize me email is a good address and sell it to others.
Hi Daniel,
I agree with you that when it comes to email marketing, the blog owner must add a privacy statement in their opt in form and they must also respect the terms they wrote in their privacy statement. I have encountered some bloggers that spam my inbox everyday and that kind of annoys me so I unsubscribed. I think they should have sent emails once in a while about topics that they believe will interest their email subscribers.
I have often been suspicious when a privacy statement is missing and don’t entertain that e-mail any longer. It may sound a bit overly strict but unsolicited mails irritate me a lot and all that irritates me is spam in my opinion.
The good is Email Marketing is a great way to drive traffic to your website and customers to your business. Sending mass emails is not in itself is not the issue. The issue lies in the way you conduct your email marketing communications.