Email marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing and reaching new customers. It’s very cheap, it’s immediate and it allows you to send a detailed message, with a call to action, direct to people are already interested in your products.

Despite this, many companies shy away from email marketing, largely because of the negative connotations it has surrounding it. Email marketing is tainted due to the spam emails that are constantly sent flying around the Internet. Indeed, the majority of emails sent are spam, so any emails that offer products and services are invariably deleted without even being read, even though they are genuine.

This is one such spam email that we received this week, claiming we had won the ‘British Lottery’. As usual, it was asking for our full details, details that would be used to create ID fraud and probably lead to applications for credit cards and the like.

The email read:

The Lottery Company
PO Box 200
Harrogate
HG1 2YR

YOU HAVE WON 710,000 POUNDS STERLING

Our Dear Winner,

You have won the sum of Ј710,000 (SEVEN HUNDRED AND TEN THOUSAND, POUNDS STERLING) from BRITISH LOTTO on our 2009 End of the Year charity bonanza.

The winning ticket was selected from a (more…)

Email marketing has been around for many years. As soon as the public started email, companies started sending unsolicited emails to them, offering all manner of products and services that they didn’t want. Over the years this has become such a problem that the majority of all emails sent via the Internet are actually spam emails.

Spam software has helped to cut down on the number of junk emails being sent, but some anti-spam software is too aggressive, and genuine emails are often filtered out when use them.

Spam email is bad. It’s annoying, it’s about stuff you’re not interested in and wastes time during your day.

Despite this, some email marketing services are decent and offer you the chance to reach people who are genuinely interested in your products. Using double opt in mailing lists means that your recipients have not only selected to receive emails of interest to them, they’ve confirmed that they are interested with a confirmation email.

This is important so that you do not foul of spam laws, which would be very bad for your company.

That said, one email we received recently for a US based retailer didn’t follow any spam laws. Not only that, but it spoofed itself as being from a friend. These types of emails serve no other purpose than to highlight how the company involved has used unethical marketing tactics online.

Here is the email received, which incidentally was formatted in (more…)