The current state of Email marketing has been a growing disdain for SPAM! What some are calling the biggest problem online today, that needs dealing with. Marketers both online and offline use SPAM as the reason via Marketing departments are not producing the results they are looking for.
It's strange to me, I've been sending opt-in newsletter for over 7 years and the last 4 years HTML email campaigns. In this time, I have seen the # of virus received by our company go thru the roof. There seems to be email addresses setup that only send virus out on an automatic basis, whether you send an email to that email or not. Also I have seen a slight increase in SPAM but only because we still have contact email addresses on our site, which is search and emails are harvested daily. But far from what everyone thinks, SPAM is seeming more like online and offline Marketing department scapegoat.
I've noticed in the last 10 years, that SPAM tastes a lot more like GOAT not pig. In recent years, I still get telemarketing calls on a regular basis all day and during dinner hours. Even bigger then SPAM, every day I check my snail mailbox, I find junk mail still arrives daily. Worse than that, the companies I do business with, including my bank, credit card company, mortgage company, and many other piece of mail are stuffed with 4-10 glossy papers of ads for hand sewing machines, flash lights, fake leather bags, books and anything else those direct marketers can stuff in a legitimate piece of mail.
TV is packed now with more commercials that make less and less sense, and in some cases offend viewers to get a response. Programs we tune into watch are packed with product placement, actors drinking Coke, reading Vogue, while talking on their Verizon cell phone. SPAM is not limited to email, but you can see it in all sources of marketing now.
It seems to me that email is not the main source of our over SPAM nation. I think it's time to put the responsibility on everyone who is involved in marketing offline or online. I am tired of email being the only thing people associate with SPAM, as if all other forms of marketing are the perfect examples of how to manage the email industry. When the truth is email is not the big BAD spam slinging monster, Marketing departments are, as well as individuals using grey market servers & software to harvest and blast email users. The same way direct marketers do to send you junk mail via direct mail and stuffed into every spot available in legitimate mail as well.
There are solutions for preventing SPAM, just like a Do-Not-Call list can benefit those receiving hundred of telemarketing calls a month. The problem still lies with the current marketers who use SPAM as their way of deflecting their own Marketing SPAM, whether it's via commercials, direct mail, junk mail, telephone.
We can no longer take a legitimate, trackable, measureable form of marketing in email and use it as the scapegoat for all the problems Marketers have created for themselves.
Patrick Wagner is an Internet Strategy and Email Marketing expert, with over 11 years experience online. Patrick Wagner is the founder of EzineListing.com and DeployEmail.com both sites are dedicated to helping the new and advanced user market their brand or web site via email.
