When faced with a spam complaint many companies will not admit wrongdoing, and will say that they are “legitimate email marketers” that do not send spam email.
Everyone sees the value of email, and it is a fact legitimate email marketers can increase sales and help make any business successful. Email marketing can be an effective business tool, but somehow the balance seems to have tipped: it has become less about marketing and more about email.
Something has to be causing the increase in spam complaints though, All of that annoying spam email has to be coming from somewhere. We all can agree that receiving spam email is an annoying waste of time.
There has to be a point where a commercial email stops being email marketing and starts being email spam. That point in time is blatantly obvious to those of us who receive unsolicited email and oblivious to the people sending those messages.
Before you begin using email marketing, there are a few useful things to remember:
- Commercial email should never be sent to people that do not ask to receive it.
- Keep a record of the requests to be added to your marketing list (complete with IP addresses the requests were sent from.
- Follow up requests to be added to your mailing list, and ask people to confirm that they indeed want to be added. (this is called a double opt-in)
- If someone asks to be removed from your mailing list take them off it right away.
- Quickly respond to any spam complaints.
As long as you keep the above points in mind, you will find that Email marketing is a great tool to increase sales, keep in touch with your client base, and inform them about your products and services.
