1. What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing is a direct form of marketing it is a business practice of sending an e-mail to subscribed list of people in the hope of selling them your products or services. If done correctly with right strategy it helps to establish loyalty, trust and brand awareness.
Even though email marketing is one of the cost effective way of direct marketing unfortunately email marketing has a bad reputation as some people use this mean to spam the users. Before getting into further details let us learn about few definitions which will help you understand how Email marketing turns into spamming.
Definition:
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Solicited or opt-in email: Solicited or opt-in email means that Recipient has granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent.
(Examples: Subscriber newsletters, customer communication) -
Unsolicited email: Unsolicited email means that the Recipient has not granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent.
(Examples: first contact enquiries, job enquiries, sales enquiries, promotional deals and offers) -
Bulk Email: Bulk email means that the message is sent as part of a larger collection of messages, all having substantively identical content. If Bulk email is solicited it is legitimate and if it is unsolicited it is Spam.
(Examples: subscriber newsletters, customer communications, discussion lists, promotional deal and offer, sales enquiries) - Spam: Spam is Unsolicited Bulk Email
- Spamming: The process sending Unsolicited Bulk Email is called spamming
- Spammer: A sender of Unsolicited Bulk E-mail is called spammer. A person who engages in the business of spam, supplying software, hosting, or other materials to enable spamming is also called spammer.
2. Typical Email marketing process flow
A typical Email marketing process flow consist of different steps and each one of them requires due diligence.
The second step requires collecting user data base that is the email list of the senders. To make your email campaign a real success it is important this email list should be a solicited or opt-in list. This way your mail will not be marked as Spam. The sending of Unsolicited Bulk Email knowingly or unknowingly is banned by all Internet service providers worldwide.
3. What happened when your email is reported as Spam?
Spam is an issue about consent, not content. No matter what is the content of the mail it can be advertisement, scam, promotional offers, customer communication etc is irrelevant all that matter is whether the message is solicited or unsolicited Bulk mail.
The main reason your email gets listed as spam is due to sending of Unsolicited Bulk Email to the end users. Once the user report your mail as Spam to the spam tracking organization like Spamhaus or SpamCop your Domain and IP, mail server get blocked. This is a serious issue as you cannot send or receive your other legitimate mails and can harm your brand image.
4. Difference between Spam and Legitimate Bulk Email
| Sr No | Spam | Legitimate Bulk Email |
| 1 | All bulk email sent to recipients who have not expressly registered permission for their addresses to be placed on the specific mailing list. | All bulk email sent to recipients who have expressly registered permission for their addresses to be placed on the specific mailing list. |
| 2 |
In the event of a "spam" accusation:
The Bulk Email Sender has no verifiable proof that the recipient consented to be placed on the bulk mailing list and is therefore liable for having sent Unsolicited Bulk Email or Spam. Action can be taken against the Sender.
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In the event of a "spam" accusation:
The Bulk Email sender is fully and legally protected because the address owner's reply to the Subscription Confirmation Request received back from the address owner proves that the address owner did in fact opt-in and grant verifiable consent for the mailings.
This simple protection means that the Bulk Email sender cannot be legitimately listed on any 'spam' block list, or legitimately terminated for spam complaints by an ISP since he has an actual email from the address owner confirming the subscription.
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5. My email campaign is being marked as Spam, what to do now? (The Cure)
1. Once you notice that your Bulk email is marked as Spam the first thing is to stop the campaign right away.
2. Check your list of recipient to whom you have sent the mail whether it contains any unsolicited Emails. If you have outsourced this process to a third party, then get the required details from them.
3. Check the unsubscribe request. When someone clicks the unsubscribe link, his record should be marked as Unsubscribed in the database, most email marketing systems also ask for a reason why are you unsubscribing. You should always check the list of all people who have wished to unsubscribe from your campaigns and also the reason behind the same. This will definitely give you an insight on whether the campaign is being targeted to the right audience. Too many unsubscribe requests indicate you targeted the wrong audience. If you have outsourced this process to a third party, then get the required details from them.
4. Make sure your vendor / software is not sending emails to people who have unsubscribed to your emails.
5. Before sending the mail make sure that your unsubscribe link is working perfectly.
6. Dos and Don’ts of Emailing (Prevention)
Dos
What is the right way to send bulk e-mail?
1. Address acquisition: Make sure all the email id that you have is opt-in or solicited.
2. Truth in advertising: State your policies and the nature of the bulk e-mail at the point of subscription. Tell the subscriber what to expect: how often, how big, what kind, what topics and content, etc.
3. Always be clear and precise: Identify your company properly in the message itself and in Internet records. Use properly registered domains with working mail and web addresses.
4. Maintenance - Keep your list current: Remove unsubscription requests and bounces promptly, as close to real-time as possible no later than the same day.
5. Bounce processing: Respect what the recipient's server tells you. SMTP "5xy" codes mean "No!" Similarly, a receiver's TEMP FAIL response (4xy) should be respected by your server.
6. Unsubscription must work! Promptly: If a user wants to unsubscribe form the email list of your give them the option of unsubscription and see to it the links.
7. Seek expert advice: Always asks your ISP for advice and consider using a reputable E-mail Service Provider (ESP) to send your mail and manage your lists.
Don’ts
What is not the right way to send Bulk email?
1. Never buy email addresses from anyone.
2. Never send unsolicited email to sender
3. Never use spamware for sending spams
Following rules is always easy and simple and keeping these things in mind will make your email campaign a great success.
Source: http://www.spamhaus.org/
