Don't Spam Me On Christmas, Please!

Want to know how to kill your company’s reputation and alienate your customer base? Want to get blacklisted? Want your open rates to be appallingly low and dismal? Then spam your entire customer base.

 

This is how I feel about spam:

I couldn’t agree more with Graham Chapman. I don’t like spam! I don’t like sending or receiving it. But what is spam? When does an email become spam?

Spam has become somewhat of a nebulous term. The given internet definition is junk mail or unsolicited bulk emails. Junk mail is somewhat abstract, and should we consider all unsolicited emails spam?

Just because you don’t end up in the spam file, doesn’t mean you haven’t spammed your audience and vice versa. Spam is more a matter of intent and practices. Do you want to bring value or do you want to spam?

As marketers we should consider spam more of an adjective. In other words don’t be “spammy.”

Here are 5 tips to be less spammy:

1. Look at your send frequency.

Unless you’re sending opt-in emails that contain fresh news, a daily email is probably too much. If you’re providing something of interest that will empower your customer then once or twice a week will be sufficient.

2. Stop trying to sell so much.

Not every communication should ask your clients to buy something. You have to limit the times you ask your customers to spend money. If everything you send is a sales pitch, people will ignore you and write you off as spam.

3. Look at your email gathering methods.

How are you getting the email addresses for your campaigns? Mining email addresses with shady tactics won’t inspire your audience to continue to listen to future communications.

4. Use better subject lines.

Just be descriptive with your subject line. Don’t try to sell or promote new deals. Tell your customers exactly what they are getting in the email. This will also help with staying out of spam filters.

5. Give away value for free.

Don’t form gate every bit of content you send out. If you deliver content that helps your customers better run their businesses without requiring them to fill out a form, people will trust emails from your inbox.