Marketing
Online Marketing: SPAM / Mass-Email Marketing
By Aaron Turpen

I'm undoubtedly broaching the most controversial subject for
Internet marketing. The title of this article shows the fine line
between a morally criminal way of thinking and a viable and
useful marketing tool. Sending SPAM (officially called UCE
or Unsolicited Commercial Email) is wrong - I will go into
the reasons for this later. However, sending commercial
email for advertising is an effective and low-cost way to
market your business or products.

Email marketing will probably be around for as long as the
Internet is alive and supports email protocols (or any
similar type of communication). Contrary to what some
would say, it also has its place. Advertising is a form of
communication. However, just like any other form of
advertising, there are rules governing this medium as well.

No matter what country you live in, some sort of free
speech law probably governs you. No matter which country
you're in, however, that free speech law does not give you
the right to take over the local newspaper and force them
to print whatever you want printed on the front page
because of your right to free speech. They are under no
obligation to pay for your free speech. The same applies
to the Internet. With email, the people receiving the
email or that person's ISP (and most likely several others
along the way) are flipping the bill for your message.
This is akin to walking into the newspaper and demanding
they print your words for free.

In addition to all of these moral issues, there are legal
ones to consider as well. There are several laws governing
the way that you are allowed to advertise anything anywhere
in the United States and elsewhere. Since government is
just a large committee of people making decisions (in most
places), it is always one step behind when it comes to
technology under the law. However, since the Internet is
really just a large cooperative of commercial and private
networks, it is a little more dynamic in its dealings with
"perpetrators." One network can effectively ban whomever
they deem a miscreant and others will eventually follow
suit as the offender moves through the different networks
to try and bypass the blockage.

With all of the hype and hysteria surrounding the use of
email as a marketing tool, why do people continue to use
it? Well...because it's effective. People wouldn't spend
the money to send junk mail through the post if it wasn't
effective and they wouldn't spend millions on a 30-second
commercial during the Super Bowl if it weren't effective as
well. If you follow some simple guidelines and use the
email marketing tool wisely, you can reap great rewards.

If you are selling a product or service which rarely leads
to residual sales to the same person or entity (i.e. they
buy it once and will probably never ask for it again -
coffins are a good example), then you can use email
marketing effectively. Why? Because you aren't building a
business name (aka "branding" your business) or consumer
trust. You are just making one-time contacts and make more
money by contacting en masse instead of by specifically
targeting customers. You aren't building lasting
relationships through your business.

There is nothing wrong with this business approach. For
some types of businesses, it is just a fact of life.
Customers don't need your product or service more than
once. There are still some rules of etiquette which you
should use when email advertising, however. Your
incentive for following them? Less negative feedback and
possibly higher return on your sales: more respect =
better chances of success.

The first rule to follow is to make sure that yourself or
the company you're paying to send out the emails includes a
short note to the recipient that explains where their email
came from. A hyperlink will suffice for this if you don't
personalize your mails from a database. Make sure that you
include the EXACT location they used to sign up for
whatever list they are on. Not only does this give them a
way to get off of that list, it also serves as a reminder
as to how they signed up to receive your emails in the
first place. If they opt-out of the list, then you're
better off for having an unresponsive customer off of your
list. Win-win.

If you're purchasing your list from someone else, get all
of the information before you buy. Where did the list come
from? How were the addresses culled? How targeted is this
list to your expected market? Has anyone else used this
list before? What is their guarantee as to the validity of
the emails on the list? Some of these questions make sense
from a marketing and business standpoint as well as a moral
one.

The next step is choosing how to convey your message inside
the email. If you visit www.scambusters.org, you'll see a
huge list of Internet scams in all categories of
"business." Everything from buying swampland in Florida to
sending used credit cards to be used as paint scrapers
instead of "filling landfills with environmentally nasty
plastic" - yes this con has actually been used. Why do I
bring up these scams? Because most of them have been
perpetrated using unsolicited email at one time or another.
Make sure your sales letter/email doesn't sound like one of
them. Nothing enrages SPAM-conscious email readers more
than a get-rich-quick scheme or any other senseless hype.

My next piece of advice is for you to get to the point.
Whether you're sending email advertising using text email,
HTML, or even Flash-embedded email to get the user's
attention, KEEP that attention. Don't waste their time
babbling on. Get to the point of your letter. You don't
have to be blunt or unimaginative, but don't write a
treatise on your great product either. People don't want
you to waste their time. Some people pay for their online
time by the minute, others are busy working or running a
business, while still others may be hogging up the family
phone to get to their email.

Everyone on the Internet has received one form of SPAM or
another. The best rule you can follow is: if you received
your email, would you respond to it? Would you really care
about the product? Why not test this theory? Open up a
free web-based email account somewhere and send your email
to a test group - people you know personally and who won't
hang you for using them this way-of five or ten people.
Then wait a couple of days and ask them if they got an
email about such-and-such product. If they remember
getting that email, you're doing a good job. If they
remember it and are mad or have bad things to say about it,
then you need to rethink your strategy. At this point you
can let them in on your scientific prodding. Be prepared
to duck and run at this point.

In closing, I hope that this series of articles has been
useful in some way. Remember that marketing is 80% of your
business. Also remember that proper marketing, using both
imagination and ethics, can carry you further and can help
solidify your business better than anything else ever will.

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Aaron Turpen is the proprieter of Aaronz WebWorkz, a full-
service provider of Web needs to small businesses.
www.AaronzWebWorkz.com