Tips to make sure your email marketing campaign doesn't look like spam

What is spam? Nobody wants it, but do we know what it actually is? Over the last few years the definitions of spam have been changing towards the idea that an email that a user doesnt want and isnt interested in is spam. Dont assume relevancy is easy to achieve though. A recent DMA survey showed that 75% of consumers found less than 20% of emails they received to be relevant to them. Not everyone has changed their definition of spam either, just under 20% of people would describe it as an email that they didnt specifically request. Another study asked consumers to rate acceptability of promotional emails out of 5 (5 is most acceptable, 1 is least acceptable.) If a company had been given permission to send emails, then almost all consumers found it acceptable with a score of 4.1. Even when the company sending the marketing email had interacted with the consumer, if permission was not given there was a big drop to an acceptability rating of 2.5. Consumers were least receptive to marketing emails from companies that they had never interacted with, when these companies send marketing material without permission that was given an acceptability score of 1.7. It seems that there is a clear message from this. Operate targeted email marketing campaigns that make content relevant to consumers and send email only to people who have agreed to receive communication from you. This seems like the surest recipe to ensure your emails are not classed as spam by any user definition. There is still a lot you can do even if your opt-in list is not as large as you would like. One of the key things you can think about is doing more with your existing list. Focus on emailing the people who have told you that it is acceptable and that they dont mind hearing from you. Dont assume that sending more emails than you do at the moment is excessive or over mailing. Many businesses have seasonal peaks where it is acceptable to send more email. A great example is the extra bank holidays for the Royal Wedding, which mean that most people wont mind hearing more from a preferred hotel chain at the moment. You also have a perfect group waiting to hear more from you in the form of your best subscribers. This group opens your emails more often and buys from those emails. That is a clear indication that they dont mind you emailing them. This is a great group to focus on. Make sure it is incredibly easy for your customers to opt in. One way to avoid agonising over making the most of the small opt in list that you have is to build a much bigger one!