An advance in spam blocking is another really good reason to take list building seriously.
The status quo in list building had been to lease a list and flood thousands of inboxes with your message. This cold call approach may result in some sales, but more often it results in angry recipients who reported your email marketing effort as spam. As spam blockers became more prominent in almost every email system this approach to email marketing has often implode on itself. The email marketing message itself may have been solid and even useful. The intent may not have been to spam. In fact, I believe there are some well-meaning online businesses that simply view mass email marketing campaigns in the same way they might have in direct mail for a brick and mortar counterpart. The problem is with spam blockers most of these messages are never making it to their intended recipient. In essence the use of a leased list is a bit like flushing money down a commode. Spam blocking software makes it more important than ever for online businesses to ensure recipients the only emails they will receive are the ones that they either ask for or are designed to confirm their order and shipping information once a sale has been completed. To put this in perspective imagine if individuals had their own ‘mail guard’. These individuals would be hired to follow you to the mailbox and sort through your mail making sure you only received personal correspondence from people you knew along with pertinent banking and billing mailings. They would eliminate certain mail order catalogues you have never ordered from and are not sure how you made it on their list.
No more sweepstakes entries of magazine offers.
No more sales flyers from businesses you’ve never heard of and postcards trying to sell a new satellite television system. You might be thinking that this would be a great service to have. However, in an online environment it is a reality. Spam blockers are constantly upgraded in an effort to reduce ‘junk mail’ from hitting your inbox. Most of the time the mail is diverted to the spam folder where you can look at it if you want. In most cases it is automatically deleted from your account in about a month. Because the online world is insisting on protection from unwanted emails this should cause online businesses to learn what they can about email marketing and transform their strategies to meet the needs of actual customers and prospects instead of pounding on doors that read, “No Admittance.” The use of spam blockers is a benefit to consumers and a challenge to online business. The role of business is becoming strongly geared toward meeting the needs of consumers. In fact online business may be more responsive to the actual and perceived needs of the consumer than brick and mortar counterparts. The reason is that spam blockers along with other online consumer benefits have led business away from the blitz and toward a consumer-centric approach to doing business before, during and after the sale.