Keep spam out of your marketing diet

By Ken Doyle

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Recently, Yahoo and AOL, two of the biggest e-mail service providers, announced a new tactic to purportedly help fight spam. The service is managed by Goodmail Systems (www.goodmailsystems.com) and essentially amounts to senders of bulk e-mail paying electronic postage to "certify" their messages so they can avoid detection by AOL and Yahoo's spam filters.  Spam is one of the biggest headaches for corporate e-mail system administrators, and it's not just a nuisance. According to a Ferris Research study, last year spam cost businesses worldwide more than $50 billion in lost productivity and other expenses.

While I detest spam as much as the next person, I believe that charging e-postage is a move in the wrong direction. It will not deter spammers or the companies that hire them and only ends up creating the equivalent of an economic caste system on the Internet.

Fortunately, most of us don't rely on AOL or Yahoo for business e-mail. While mid-sized or large companies typically implement their own spam-detection and filtering systems, small and medium-sized businesses are often at a loss to decide which method will provide the best results.

There are a variety of spam-fighting techniques available. Server-side tools are generally more effective than client-side software (programs that run on individual computers). A good overview of both methods is available at the Responsible Net Commerce Web site (spam.abuse.net).

When you're the sender

While the effectiveness of e-mail marketing is debatable, many companies are attracted to the idea because of its seemingly low cost and broad reach. If your business is planning an e-mail marketing campaign, following some basic guidelines will help minimize the risk of problems.

Make it transparent. Before planning your e-mail campaign, decide how and where your company will use any information provided by recipients. Make this policy clear to potential recipients. Post it prominently on your Web site and include a link to it in all your communications.

Keep your list clean. It's vital to ensure that your message reaches only the people who actually want it. The best way to do this is to use a "double opt-in" procedure in which each person who signs up for your list receives an e-mail with a confirmation request. Never buy a list from an outside provider, even a reputable company, because there's just no way to ensure that every e-mail address on a purchased list belongs to someone who's interested in receiving your promotion. Remember, it takes only a few complaints for your company's e-mail servers to be blacklisted.

Do your homework. If possible, manage and maintain your e-mail marketing program yourself. If you decide to outsource it, make sure that the vendor follows stringent guidelines to avoid the possibility that your campaign becomes spam. The SpamCon Foundation (www.spamcon.org) provides some useful suggestions for e-mail marketers.

Provide an exit. Every e-mail you send should provide a valid link for recipients to opt out of your list, even if they've previously opted in. Attend to all such removal requests promptly.

Finally, remember to make the content of your e-mail useful to recipients. Rather than just advertising products, provide special discounts, rebates or other incentives to reward loyal customers and attract new ones. After all, that should be the objective of any marketing campaign, electronic or otherwise.

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