Email Marketing Blog

I was chatting with a friend the other day and he announced that he was finally going to start mailing to the list he had built up over the past few years (but had never mailed).

This is not a good idea. If someone signed up for your list 3 years ago, the possibility of them remembering who the heck you are and why they subscribed to your list in the first place probably ranges somewhere between slim and none.

The first thing they’ll think when reading your message is, “Where’s the SPAM button?”

First of all, in 3 years’ time, a good percentage of these people have moved from homes or jobs and their email address has moved with them. So, your emails are going to bounce. And bounce. And bounce again.

The ISP’s take notice when they see too many bounces. In fact, I’ve heard that some ISPs actually keep those old email addresses around and use them to trap spammers. After all, if Jane Doe wanted to continue to receive email (family, friends, etc.), she would have told people by now.

The fact that you’re still emailing Jane tells the ISP’s that you are either buying those CD’s with 5 trillion email addresses for $4.95 (remember those??) OR you’re too lazy to keep your list clean.

Unfortunately, when in doubt….blacklist.

It takes no time (and sometimes no reason) to have your email blacklisted. Sorry to say, most small merchants don’t even know that it’s happened. And if it does happen, they don’t have a clue what to do to reverse it.  It’s much better to keep it from happening in the first place.

Be proactive. If you have lists which are that old, take a deep breath and start over again. Or (if you are determined to make contact) at least include as much information as possible so your readers remember you. Things like: from, to, name of the report or publication they originally signed up to receive, the website they enrolled from, the IP address they used, etc. In this way, they may unsubscribe but, hopefully, they will know that you didn’t make it up!

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

ValueClick, Inc., an online advertiser, has agreed to settle FTC charges alleging deceptive claims and emails, as well as failure to secure consumers’ sensitive financial information.

ValueClick (through a subsidiary) used deceptive emails, pop-ups and banner ads to drive traffic to its site. Visitors were told they were eligible for big-ticket “free” gifts, such as laptops and iPods.

What they weren’t told is they had to go through a maze of forms and more forms and third-party offers galore, which they HAD to “participate in” in order ot get the supposedly free merchandise.

This was obviously in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act and the FTC Act. In addition to the financial settlement, ValueClick and Hi-Speed Media must clearly and conspicuously disclose that consumers have to spend money or incur obligations to quality for “free” merchandise.

Visit the FTC site to learn more about this settlement.

I came across an interesting interview at TimesOnline with Ray Tomlinson, accredited with sending the first email message through his software called “Send Message Program”, who admits he never envisioned the evils of spam.

Things have changed since that first email was sent back in 1971. It’s been reported that most of us spend 52 hours a year sorting and deleting junk email. (Sometimes it even seems like 52 hours a week!)

One good comment for those of us who market through email is, “there will always be a need for people to be able to communicate asynchronously, that is, send messages that won’t be read or replied to immediately, and that’s what email allows you to do.”

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

Crime does not pay, kiddies, and apparently neither does spamming. The proclaimed “spam king”, Robert Soloway, recently pleaded guilty to fraud in connection with email, felony mail fraud, and failing to file a tax return, as report in the Seattle Times recently.

In a plea deal with the federal prosecutors, they agree to drop 37 counts against him, including aggravated identity theft and money laundering - in exchange for his guilty plea for one count of spamming, mail fraud, and failing to file a tax return.

Mr. Soloway will have plenty of time to catch up with his email, as the charges he will be facing add up to 20 years in jail and up to $625,000 in fines.

Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse

A popular anti-spam organization, SpamHaus, was ordered by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to pay $11,715,000 in damages to e360insight and its CEO, David Linhardt. e360insight sued SpamHaus earlier this year over illegal blacklisting of their mailings.

Additionally, SpamHaus was barred from causing any email sent by e360insight or Linhardt to be “blocked, delayed, altered, or interrupted in anyway”. The court also ordered SpamHaus to publish a public apology for deeming the group a spammer.

SpamHaus, a British-based organization, did not accept the US jurisdiction and believes that the order is not enforceable. “As spamming is illegal in the United Kingdom, an Illinois court ordering a British organization to stop blocking incoming Illinois spam in Britain goes contrary to U.K. law which orders all spammers to cease sending spam in the first place” SpamHaus stated.

At GetResponse we use SpamHaus as one of the methods to filter inbound spam and prevent spammers from abusing legitimate email marketing and autoresponder campaigns. We regret that the US court system can be used as a weapon against a non-profit organization that strives to keep our mailboxes clean.

UPDATE

In a proposed court order dated 10/6/2007 Judge Charles Kocoras of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois calls on the organizations responsible for registering the Spamhaus.org Internet address to suspend the organization’s Internet service. Both ICANN and Tucows, the Spamhaus.org registrar, are named in the order.

A spam-savvy Illinois lawyer shares his perspective on the issue and believes that the outlook may be bleak for the anti-spam organization.

UPDATE #2

A federal judge presiding over a spam dispute rejected a marketing company’s request to suspend the domain name of an anti-spam group that ignored an $11.7 million judgment against it.

U.S. District Court Judge Charles P. Kocoras denied a proposed motion from e360 Insight, which sued the Spamhaus Project over its “black list” of spammers. Wheeling, Ill.-based e360 Insight contends it is improperly on the list because it is a direct marketer that does not send unsolicited e-mail.