The new definition of spam

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Getting a consumer's opt-in isn't enough. New research indicates your legitimate email promotions are still being discarded as spam. Here's what you can do about it.

MarketingSherpa recently released the results of a consumer survey that looked at the use of "report spam" and "junk" buttons among popular email clients, and its findings are not encouraging for email marketers. While 52 percent of email users hit the spam button when they received messages from senders who don't have their permission, the second most common reason -- coming in at 41 percent -- is because the email received wasn't of interest to them.

We've heard time and time again that sending relevant emails is a best practice that results in higher conversion rates and customer satisfaction, but this study links relevancy (or lack of it) to a consumer action that can significantly damage your sender reputation. One of MarketingSherpa's key takeaways is that recipients "define spam by the quality of the email itself -- not by the overall reputation of the company emailing them."

And don't think about launching a marketing campaign to educate consumers about how they're affecting your sender reputation. The survey also found that consumers aren't worried about how their spam-button pushing affects your organization.

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