Here’s Part IV of this 5-part series covering the 5 most common consumer spam-complaint-triggers and how to avoid accidentally pulling them. To see all the articles in the series to date, go to the archive page.
Trigger #4: Excessive Promotion
Selling more than enough of your products or services to stay in business is an important part of your email marketing strategy, but according to a Jupiter Research survey, 40% of consumers said they stopped subscribing to opt-in emails because they were getting too many offers. Too many offers might lead to spam complaints if you don’t strike a balance between the preferences of your audience and your promotional frequency.
- Keep your promotional frequency in line with your average sales cycle and business model. If your business is known as the discount choice among the competition, your audience is probably more promotion-tolerant than if your business is positioned as delivering higher quality and service. If you sell items that are consumed quickly, your audience probably expects more frequent promotions than if you sell items that are normally purchased every few months, years, or once in a lifetime.
- Place promotions on your website and use informative email content to drive clicks. For example, instead of putting an entire article and a promotion in your email newsletter, use only the first two or three sentences in your email, and post the rest of the article, and a related promotion, on your website. That way, your audience isn’t exposed to your promotional content until they are interested enough in a specific topic to click for more information.
- Know your audience’s promotional preferences. Some consumers love coupons, sales, and discounts. Others believe that sales items are defective or inferior. If your audience is made up of the latter, they won’t tolerate as many promotions as audiences made up of so-called “discount shoppers.” If you’re not sure of your audience’s promotional preferences, use a survey, a poll, or a choice of interest lists to sort your subscribers into groups.
John Arnold is the author of Email Marketing for Dummies and the Director of Constant Contact’s Local Expert Program.
Here’s Part III of this 5-part series covering the 5 most common consumer spam-complaint-triggers and how to avoid accidentally pulling them. To see all the articles in the series to date, go to the archive page.
Trigger #3: Broken Promises
When people share their email address with you, they trust you to use it in accordance with their expectations. For example, if someone shares her email address during a purchase in order to receive a shipping confirmation, she isn’t likely to appreciate a bunch of ongoing promotions. Give your subscribers clear expectations before they share their email address, then stick to your promises.
- Tell your new subscribers exactly what you’re going to send. Clearly describe each list you offer and use Constant Contact’s Archive Feature to include a ‘view sample’ link next to your signup link. That way, people can see what your emails look like.
- Send a welcome email after a new subscriber joins. Make sure your welcome email clearly describes the email content you plan to send. You can also include an Archive link pointing to your most recent email in the welcome email to reinforce your content description.
- Send only the content your subscribers sign up to receive. If your subscribers join in order to receive an informative newsletter, don’t send separate promotions, announcements, or event invitations unless your subscribers also choose to be on the lists associated with those kinds of communications.
John Arnold is the author of Email Marketing for Dummies and the Director of Constant Contact’s Local Expert Program.
Here’s Part II of this 5-part series covering the 5 most common consumer spam-complaint-triggers and how to avoid accidentally pulling them. To see all the articles in the series to date, go to the archive page.
Trigger #2: Irrelevant Content
Consumers expect their email subscriptions to deliver value, but one subscriber’s junk is another subscriber’s treasure. According to eMarketer, 46% of Internet users say the commercial emails they receive are not targeted to their needs. Since your email list is likely to include people with a variety of interests, take your audience’s interests into account before you send.
- Offer a choice of lists on your signup form. For example, some consumers don’t want to receive promotions and others only care about your products when they are on sale. Offering a “discount club” list and an “informative newsletter” list helps identify these potentially opposing interests so you can target future emails.
- Use click data to target future messages. When people click on your links they are telling you what they are interested in. Use your tracking report to help you create different interest lists. You can keep your interest lists private or add them to your signup form so future subscribers can select them.
- Send surveys and polls to test the water. Instead of making assumptions about what to send, ask your audience. You can send a formal survey before starting a major email campaign or use ongoing polls to get small bits of information over time and adjust your strategy as you go.
John Arnold is the author of Email Marketing for Dummies and the Director of Constant Contact’s Local Expert Program.
Receiving a spam complaint can feel like being betrayed by your best friend, especially when you’ve worked so hard to build a permission-based list of prospects and customers who should be familiar with your business.
Don’t be too quick to equate spam complaints with back-stabbing, however. Some email characteristics cause your legitimate permission-based email to look like spam to your audience, which can trigger ‘accidental’ spam complaints. In this 5-part series, I’ll show you the 5 most common consumer spam-complaint-triggers and how to avoid accidentally pulling them.
Trigger #1: Mistaken Identity
It’s safe to say that clearly communicating your identity is the number one way to reduce accidental spam complaints. According to a survey by the Email Sender and Provider Coalition, 79% of consumers clicked the spam button when they didn’t know who the sender was. Here are the three keys to identifying yourself to your email audience.
- Make your From line familiar. Use the same words your audience uses to identify you or your business. For example, if you’re an online business and your customers refer to you by your domain name instead of your formal business name, put your domain name in your From line.
- Include your brand. Insert your logo into the upper left or center of every email and include image descriptions to identify you in case your audience has images disabled. Choose colors that identify your business when designing your email templates and use the same colors in every template you use. Don’t just use the stock template colors.
- Turn authentication on in your Constant Contact account. Remember that your audience includes Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as Yahoo!, AOL, and Hotmail, because these companies control the delivery of your email. Authentication is a new technology that helps ISPs to identify legitimate email, and if your email isn’t recognized it could be filtered or tagged with a warning message.
John Arnold is the author of Email Marketing for Dummies and the Director of Constant Contact’s Local Expert Program.
Value isn’t what your customers pay for what they get, it’s how your customers feel about what they pay for what they get. Coming up with valuable email content isn’t as simple as announcing your rock-bottom prices and including your phone number or a link to your website. Value is about including something in every email that makes your subscribers feel like they are getting a greater-than-expected return on the investment of time and distraction that your email messages impose on them.
In order for your emails to feel valuable, each one has to contain one or more of the following types of valuable content:
- Valuable offers. Examples include incentives, discounts, special privileges, rebates, and coupons. The type of valuable offer you choose should match your audience’s preferences. For example, not everyone likes discounts. Some people associate discounts with such negatives as discontinued, out-of-favor, or defective.
- Inherent value. Examples include articles, opinions, facts, advice, links to resources, lists, official policies, maps, directions, instructions, and checklists. The type of inherent value you choose should also match your audience’s preferences. For example, sending directions to your store might be valuable to prospective customers, but loyal customers might find the information too repetitive.
- Relationship value. Examples include thanks, praise, unexpected rewards, apologies, encouragement, humor, and privileged information. The type of relationship value you put into an email is highly personalized, so relationship emails are sometimes more effective when they are highly personalized. If dynamic email content and mail merge isn’t a part your Email Service Provider’s toolbox, look for commonalities among your prospects and customers so it’s practical to email them valuable relationship content in groups.
I’ve only encountered a few companies that are proficient at creating valuable content for their emails. Check out your competition and see if they understand valuable content. If not, giving your emails a value-boost can easily put you ahead of your competition and keep your subscribers engaged in your business instead of theirs.
John Arnold is the author of Email Marketing for Dummies and the Director of Constant Contact’s Local Experts Program.
