The Difference Between Marketing and Spamming
By Nathan Lyle (Web Maestro) - August 25th, 2010
Email is an extremely powerful tool, one which sometimes causes us to do things we probably shouldn't do. The line between should and shouldn't is most important when your business is at stake. You might make certain decisions based on the pressure to increase sales. However, the same things that may in the short term cause an increase, will often in the long term sink your ship. I'm talking about spamming.
A handful of people know that what they're doing is spamming and don't care. This isn't you. You want to use email to connect with people and get them to buy your product, attend your event, or sign up for something. You may not have considered, however, that every message you send out is an interaction with your company or organization. How you behave will reflect directly on your long term success.
I'm not the first person to so say it, but the true key to the power of online marketing is permission. Some people get excited about the ability of the Internet to increase a person's ability to broadcast—to send out messages willy nilly and shoot for statistical gains. The real power, however, is in the ability to exponentially increase the power of a personal relationship. Your contact with someone electronically should be as courteous and professional as you would want to be in person when representing your business. Get permission to send them email.
Why get permission to send a message to someone? Because they're more likely to read it, and to care what you're saying. Permission builds trust. Trust over time gives you a very receptive targeted market, and builds up the perception of your business. Your messages are part of an ongoing relationship rather than more noise in their in-box.
Beyond permission, specific behaviors matter as well. A very common mistake I see made is when someone sends an email out to 50 or 100 or more others, listing each email address and name in the "to" field of the message. Not only does this give all of those addresses and names to each person on that list, it's easy for people to accidentally reply and send a response to all of those addresses. Some people are very guarded about their email address, and if you start shouting it from the roof tops, they won't take kindly to it.
Another common no-no is sending attachments in marketing email. Attachments are often the way that viruses are passed by email, and can cause problems. It can also get you filtered out by anti-virus software and over protective mail servers. Or, if the file is large, it can cause people's email programs to crash. Not a great way to start a sales pitch. If the content of your attachment is text, you should put that text right in the email. If it needs to be a PDF or some other file, put it online somewhere and include a link in your email. This allows people to know what they're getting into, and they will appreciate you for it. If you have a website, you can store files there, or you can utilize any of the many online services like box.net or Google Docs.
Finally, always allow your message recipients an easy way to say "stop sending me email" by including an unsubscribe link or instructions in each message. Compare it to sales in person... would you buy anything from someone who cornered you and wouldn't let you leave, or someone who followed you around everywhere you went but ignored anything you said?
It's easy to not be a spammer: be professional, be courteous, and be friendly.
Resources:
- Google Docs - docs.google.com
Upload files to share with your message recipients. Edit and view your docs from any computer or smart phone. - Box - box.net
Box.net's online file storage makes it easy to securely share content as a link or a shared folder with anyone - inside or outside your company - Constant Contact - webmaestroemail.com
Create and manage email campaigns, message statistics, and surveys. - The CAN-SPAM Act - bit.ly/WkgdT
A law that sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have you stop emailing them, and spells out tough penalties for violations.
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