April Newsletter
29 Apr 2003
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 Hi Everyone
Well it seems that as one war ends and another begins, or rather steps up.
The war on Spam is an interesting one: while we all want to reduce it, there are unscrupulous marketers out there who are hell-bent on increasing it, and companies now whose furtures lie in controlling it. The problem is that, for some people, Spam is a viable option, just like junk mail and telemarketing.
Will we win? Only when people stop responding to it. Whether that be as a result of filtering, legislation or consumer trends.
Getting your customers' attention through e-mail relies so much now on building trust and good relationships. Being recognised and accepted will get you read. In this situtaion, Spam doesn't matter: you will stand out because your customer knows you.
As always I encourage your feedback. E-mail me at paul@peoplelogic.com.au
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Tell Them 'Who' Not Just 'What'
Using the potent power of 'Subject' and 'From'
Last year, a study by Quris found that over 50% of e-mails are deleted immediately if the sender was not familier. Meanwhile, 62% were either eager or curious to read the e-mail if the sender was recognised.
Let's face it, writing a good subject line for an e-mail is not easy.
Within the space of a few characters, your brief text needs to convey a sense of importance that raises it above all others in the intended In Box. I struggle dozens of times a day.
The fact that the subject of this bulletin is, of course, all about e-mail marketing - a key part of which is writing good subject lines - adds an unnecessary layer of pressure. Consequently, I spend way too much time thinking about it and often feel that the result is in direct inverse proportion to the effort.
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Click thru analysis reveals all.
Sudden drop in click throughs sound alarm bells
What do you do when, all things being equal, your click through rates take a dive?
Rebecca sends out her monthly newsletter with an average open rate of 42%.
When she called me last week she was perturbed.
'What did you do to my click through rates?'
Each issue, the open rates have been consistent. Each issue, the database has remained consistent. Each issue, the type of content has remained consistent. So what did we, the service provider, do wrong? It must be us, surely.
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Australia Declares War on Spam
Australia's Internet Industries Association Anti Spam Initiatives
Recognising that current legislation is basically powerless in stopping the Spam scourge, Australia's Internet Industries Association launched a new anti spam campaign this month. The campaign aims to provide consumers with tools which would enable them to take steps to ensure e-mail remains spam free and a viable communication medium for both private e-mail and legitimate commercial use.
 The details of the new initiative on the IIA web site, www.iia.net.au, lists a host of anti Spam products and services available to reduce the effect of Spam on personal and legitimate commercial e-mails.
Primarily, the initiative provides free trials of commercial products designed to reduce Spam, including the recently announced SpamTrap which was initiated by the team that started Ozemail; directors Sean Howard, Malcolm Turnbull, Trevor Kennedy and Andrew Kent.
Peter Coroneos, IIA Cheif Executive, is speaking at the FCC Global Spam Forum in Washington this week. Peter Says: "We are very pleased with how the campaign is going. We have had a great deal of media exposure. This had created unprecedented traffic to the IIA site, with visitors from all over the world and numerous referrals to the vendors for trials. All in all, we are delighted with the level of interest, which confirms what we suspected all along - that people are heartily fed up with having their inboxes filled with material they neither desire nor have requested."
The trial will be an interesting one and tests the willingness of consumers to take action against Spam and, in the long term, actually pay for the service (SpamTrap for example costs $33 per month.)
As anti Spam services, legislation and user habits develop, Spam will be less of an issue. Of course green lobbyists would ask why were such steps started to reduce Junk mail? Imagine the thousands of hectares of forest decimated daily to cope with the garbage we reject in our post boxes. Email doesn't seem so bad does it?
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