Learn an IT concept in 10 easy steps.
Here's how it works: We give you a little background about the concept, a glossary to look up related terms, some outside reading, and a self-assessment quiz. You spend as much (or as little) time as you like moving through the ten steps and exploring the concept.
Directions: Read steps 1-8 and their related links. Use the glossary (step 9) to look up any terms you don't know. When you're done, take a quiz (step 10) to
see how much you've learned!
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1. What's the difference between spam and legitimate e-mail marketing?
Spam is unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE). Its defining characteristics are:
From the sender's perspective, spam is an extremely efficient and cost-effective way to distribute a message, but to most recipients, spam is just junk e-mail.
Recipients sometimes fail to differentiate between spam and legitimate e-mail marketing campaigns, but there are clear differences. The essential elements of a
legitimate e-mail marketing campaign are:
Although most spam is unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE), the term also encompasses other types of mass mailings, such as e-mail chain letters,
personal campaign mailings, messages with virus-laden attachments, and messages containing virus hoaxes, among other possibilities.
Here's a break-down on spam categories by percentage:
(From a Brightmail Probe Network report, statistics as of September 2003)
[TABLE] 2. How does spam affect the behavior of recipients?
People are becoming increasingly unlikely to open messages they haven't agreed to receive. Furthermore, the overwhelming volume of spam in people's inboxes
makes them much less likely to open anything that isn't a personal message from someone they know. Because the number of messag
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es is often so great,
many just routinely delete all messages that aren't of a personal nature, whether or not they've expressed an interest in receiving messages from some of the senders.
They might also add criteria to make their spam filters more stringent, which makes the programs more likely to flag legitimate mail as spam. Frequently, people
maintain "throwaway" e-mail accounts specifically for any mail generated by an online sign-up.
3. What does that mean for the legitimate marketer?
For one thing, it means that the legitimate marketer should be at the forefront of the anti-spam movement. While spam is an annoyance to most recipients, it's a real
threat to the livelihood of anyone who depends on e-mail marketing. It also means that legitimate marketers must, at all costs, behave in a manner that differentiates
them from spammers. After all, annoying people has never been the key to long-term, sustainable success in the marketplace.
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4. How can legitimate marketers further differentiate themselves from spammers?
According to Joseph Turow, professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communications, there's a straightforward formula
for successful e-mail marketing: "Don't overload people with messages, get to them with exactly what you think they want to know, and don't bother them too much
with it."
Here's a checklist for e-mail marketing best practices:
[TABLE] 5. What do spammers do that's so different from what legitimate marketers do?
Spamming is easy and lucrative; that's why it's getting more prevalent all the time. Spammers wouldn't do it if it didn't make them a profit. Ron Scelson (known as the
"Cajun Spammer"), for example, claims to make $4,000-5,000 per mailing and to get a 1% response rate for his clients. Most spammers tend to think of themselves
as entrepreneurs that are hard-pressed to dodge the stringent anti-spam measures imposed by ISPs. To get around such measures, Scelson has sometimes used
offshore servers to send his mailings, though they can be up to five times more expensive than domestic systems. Scelson tests all his e-mails against spam filters to
make sure they can get through. He claims that he can get spam through a new filtering system in less than 24 hours, and sometimes in as little as three minutes.
Scelson said he will spoof e-mail addresses if he has to. "It's a last resort for me, a backup system, but again, it can totally be done," he said during a
recent webcast presented by messaging product vendor IntelliReach.
In direct contrast to spammers, responsible marketers do a great deal of preparation in advance to a mailing, selecting a target group according to its characteristics
and interests, and preparing high-quality mailings to send out in a responsible manner. As a result, the campaigns of a legitimate marketer are much more expensive
than those of the spammer, but they're vastly more likely to help establish good customer relationships.
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6. What's the future of e-mail marketing?
According to a report from Gartner's G2 research group, direct e-mail marketing is likely to soon be more prevalent than postal mail marketing, for customer
aquisition and customer retention mailings alike. It is likely that, through evolving technologies, it will become increasingly possible to generate highly accurate,
detailed, and relevant customer data for more effective targeting. However, many in the industry believe that unless the spam problem is conquered, e-mail marketing
will never achieve its potential.
According to Ajay Segal, clickthrough rates on acquisition-based mailings has fallen from as much as 20% to as little as 2%, at least partially because people are less
frequently even bothering to open their opt-in e-mail. What has to happen to overcome this situation? First of all, we have to get a handle on the spam problem, so
people are more interested in their e-mail. Secondly, e-mail marketers have to look to their own practices. Spam, almost by definition, is something that no one
wants. E-mail marketing can differentiate itself, and ensure its bright future by delivering content that the recipient is glad to get.
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7. How bad is the spam problem?
In September 2003, spam accounted for 54% of all Internet e-mail -- up from 18% in April 2002 (source Brightmail Probe Network). The spam problem is
bad -- and rapidly getting worse -- for a number of reasons. For example, in the U.S., the recently established National Do Not Call Registry has enabled people to
add their telephone numbers to a list that telemarketers are not allowed to call. As a result, people and organizations that had relied on telemarketing campaigns have
begun to look for other ways to get their messages out, and many have turned to the Internet as the least expensive means of doing so. The cost of using the postal
system, and the further complication of the recent anthrax scare, has meant that a mail campaign is not a viable alternative to many who relied on telemarketing. As a
result of these and other factors, the amount of spam clogging the Internet has expanded alarmingly.
Some other spam statistics:
[TABLE] 8. What's the current status of anti-spam legislation?
Various European countries are drafting or enacting anti-spam laws. In Britain, opt-in e-mail legislation is currently being implemented. This legislation
effectively makes it illegal to send UCE from within the country, although spammers located elsewhere would be difficult to prosecute. Another problem with the
British legislation is that it only targets spam sent to private homes, which does nothing to alleviate the severe spam problem facing businesses throughout the country.
Italy has implemented the European Anti-Spam Directive, which mandates jail time for sending spam.
The United States seems to be leaning towards an opt-out approach, which many fear will make the problem worse than ever. It would be illegal to send UCE to
anyone who says they don't want to receive it. However, the only way to refuse future UCE from a particular sender is to respond to their message. According to
experts, that's something you should never do: spammers use such responses to verify active e-mail addresses, which can be sold for a higher price. As a rule, the
result is even greater volumes of UCE. Various states are taking legislative action on their own. However, for anti-spam legislation to be effective, it really needs to
be national -- if not international -- in scope.
A proposed "do not spam" list, similar to the telemarketing-targeted "do not call" list could be effective, although it would work in a roundabout way. E-mails would
be marked to attest that the sender abides by the list. One way of ensuring this would by using ePrivacy Group's Trusted Email Open Standard. The standard works
by inserting small -- less than 1 KB -- digital certificates into the headers of e-mails. The certificates assure the recipient that messages actually originated from the
addresses they claim to come from. UCE without such a certificate could be blocked by the ISP's mail server or the user's spam filter.
The "do not call" list itself has changed the way marketers conduct business. The "cold call" of telemarketers may soon be a thing of the past: an overwhelming
number of people have added themselves to the list in order to avoid such calls. Spam is much like an online version of the cold call -- almost universally unwelcome.
According to many industry experts, marketers should avoid both practices, and create a new marketing model in which the focus is on nurturing existing customer
relationships and improving the intrinsic quality of future communications with customers.
[TABLE] 9. Spam vs. Legitimate Marketing Words-to-Go Glossary:
Browse through the handy printable glossary.
10. Self-assessment:
After you've looked at the glossary, quiz yourself to see what you've
learned about spam.
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