New Realities for E-Mail MarketingSpam e-mail is no longer
mild irritant it once was – it’s clogging corporate networks and ISP mail servers and has become a real productivity drain, forcing corporate and consumer e-mail users to spend 20-30 minutes a day dealing with this deluge of junk! According to recent figures, unsolicited bulk e-mail now makes up to 36% of all e-mail, up from under 8% just over a year ago. And, what’s worse, more and more legitimate e-mail is not getting through to recipients due to Spam filtering taking place via ISPs and/or corporate networks.
Opt-in E-Mail Marketing 30K foot Picture
Opt-in e-mail marketing is clearly losing some of its effectiveness as a viable marketing tool much to consternation of those of us who have been advocating its effectiveness for years! This is not to say opt-in e-mail isn’t a viable way to market goods and services – but ROI (read response rates) is heading south quickly and needs to be considered when assessing viability of this marketing process, as response rates have dropped on average from 10-20% to 3-10%.
However, opt-in e-mail is not disappearing off marketing horizons – Forrester forecasts spending on e-mail marketing will grow from $1.3B (USD) in 2001 to $6.8B in 2006 and Jupiter Media Metrix is even more optimistic, forecasting growth rates from $1B in 2001 to $9.4B in 2006. But, there is a dark undercurrent to these numbers that is fueling market growth and driving down response rates – some opt-in agencies, brokers and media representatives are “flogging” lists by overselling them – so caveat emptor.
Five Offsetting Marketing Strategies
1) Deploy opt-in e-mail campaigns very selectively (!) - buy opt-in e-mail lists from legitimate top-tier broker/list managers who are well established, are not “over-sending” messages to list subscribers and who are constantly refreshing their list quality by adding new subscribers. Critical questions to ask brokers include: how many messages (“frequency” in ad speak) are sent to each list recipient per month, how are new subscribers added and what is percentage of new members added per month, are they using “third party” (someone else’s list) lists to augment their own, are their lists “double opt in” (meaning, you sign up and then must reply to a signup confirmation to be added to a list) and last but not least, what is their privacy policy and how strictly do they adhere to published industry standards.
