Ask About Marketing

I am reading with great interest the breaking story of Feedburner's spamming incident. For me, it poses two interesting questions - firstly - what is really perceived as spam and secondly - how can we make sure that this doesn't happen to us?

First things first - what is spam? I have read the postings which say that it was not spam (I am speechless). Some bloggers have described email spam as interesting and have even gone as far as to call it legitimate direct marketing if it has content within the recipient's sphere of interest.

I think we have to all agree that unsolicited email of any kind is spam (not just the kind that promotes viagra) - and when there are no unsubscribe links - it is breaking a few laws. Remember the First Commandment of Email Marketing - thou shalt not spam!

Here, we have a case of a company who claims to have sent emails in error to non-clients. Read their apology. Oh god! (I hear you gasp)How can I ensure that my company doesn't get branded a spammer? Not as difficult as you might think.

Never send an email to someone who hasn't subscribed to receive email communciation from you. Check your opt-in process - only contacts who have opted in should be in your email marketing database. Use an email marketing solution with an integrated database that automatically deals with your opt-ins and opt-outs.

You need a solution which allows you to add subscribe and unsubscribe information directly into the database in real-time. If you have a solution which automatically excludes opt-outs from future mailings from the second they click on the unsubscribe button - then you can't email them by mistake.

Also consider email marketing solutions which enable you to gather contact preferences - such as desired content, frequency of emails, etc. This enables you to give your subscribers the most relevant content for their needs and the more relevant the content, the less likely they are to unsubscribe in the first place.

Although most solutions don't do this - try to find one that keeps a history of information sent to individual subscribers including their opt-in date and their opt-out date if relevant.

And finally! If you are doing all of the above - don't worry - sounds like you have your bases covered. On the other hand if you can see gaps in your process - learn from Feedburner and tighten up your subscription process now.

Talk to you all soon.