SPAM: E-Mail Marketing End of Story

[Ralph_drundorf_331]

This is a new form of spam where the the spammer in this case

 

trahaet.com

votpusk.org

 

Is posting semi relevant information in the wrong category. Looking closer you can see that they are doing this to raise their page rank.

 

E-mail marketing

 

E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses

electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or

fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense,

every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be

considered e-mail marketing. However, the term is usually

used to refer to:

 

- Sending e-mails with the purpose of enhancing the relationship

of a merchant with its current or old customers and to

encourage customer loyalty and repeat business.

- Sending e-mails with the purpose of acquiring new customers or

convincing old customers to buy something immediately.

- Adding advertisements in e-mails sent by other companies to

their customers.

 

Researchers estimate that as of 2004 the E-mail Marketing

industry's revenues has surpassed the $1 billion/yr mark.

 

Advantages

E-mail marketing is popular with companies because:

- Compared to other media investments such as direct mail

or printed newsletters, it is less expensive.

- Return on investment has proven to be high when done properly.

- It is instant, as opposed to a mailed advertisement,

an e-mail arrives in a few seconds or minutes.

- It lets the advertiser "push" the message to its audience,

as opposed to a website that waits for customers to come in.

- It is easy to track. An advertiser can track bounce-backs,

un-subscribes, open rates, positive or negative responses,

click-throughs, rise in sales.

- Advertisers can reach substantial numbers of e-mail

subscribers who have opted in (consented) to receive

e-mail communications on subjects of interest to them

- When most people switch on their computer the first thing

they do is check their e-mail.

- Specific types of interaction with messages can trigger

other messages to be automatically delivered.

 

Disadvantages

Many companies use e-mail marketing to communicate with

existing customers, but many other companies send unsolicited

bulk e-mail, also known as spam.

 

Illicit e-mail marketing antedates legitimate e-mail marketing,

since on the early Internet (see Arpanet) it was not permitted

to use the medium for commercial purposes. As a result,

marketers attempting to establish themselves as legitimate

businesses in e-mail marketing have had an uphill battle,

hampered also by criminal spam operations billing themselves

as legitimate.

 

It is frequently difficult for observers to distinguish

between legitimate and spam e-mail marketing. First off,

spammers attempt to represent themselves as legitimate operators,

obfuscating the issue. Second, direct-marketing political

groups such as the U.S. Direct Marketing Association (DMA)

have pressured legislatures to legalize activities which many

Internet operators consider to be spamming, such as the sending

of "opt-out" unsolicited commercial e-mail. Third, the sheer

volume of spam e-mail has led some users to mistake legitimate

commercial e-mail (for instance, a mailing list to which the

user subscribed) for spam — especially when the two have a

similar appearance, as when messages include HTML and flashy

graphics.

 

Due to the volume of spam e-mail on the Internet, spam filters

are essential to most users. Some marketers report that

legitimate commercial e-mails frequently get caught by filters,

and hidden; however, it is somewhat less common for e-mail

users to complain that spam filters block legitimate mail.

 

Companies considering an e-mail marketing program must make

sure that their program does not violate spam laws such as

the United States CAN-SPAM Act, the European Privacy &

Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 or their Internet

provider's acceptable use policy. Even if a company follows

the law, if Internet mail administrators find that it is

sending spam it is likely to be listed in blacklists such as

SPEWS.

 

 

E-mail marketing terms

 

Auto-responders

Automatic replies sent by the e-mail software of the

recipient after receipt of an e-mail.

Bounce backs

e-mail sent back to the server that originally sent

the e-mail.

Bounce rate

Ratio of bounced e-mails to total e-mails sent.

Bulk, bulking

Terms used by spammers to refer to their line of work.

Mostly synonymous with spam or UCE.

Call to action

Words in the e-mail that entice recipients to do

something.

Click-through

The action of clicking on a link.

Click-through rate (CTR)

Ratio of click-throughs to total e-mails sent.

Commercial e-mail

Any e-mail sent for commercial purpose; for instance,

an advertisement to buy a product or service, an order

confirmation from an online store, or a paid subscription

periodical delivered by e-mail. Commercial e-mail is not

synonymous with spam; see unsolicited commercial e-mail below.

Demographic

Characteristic of a group of e-mail recipients.

Double opt-in

A term coined by spammers to refer to the normal operation

of secure electronic mailing list software. A new

subscriber first gives his/her address to the list

software (for instance, on a Web page) and then confirms

subscription after receiving an e-mail asking if it was

really him/her. This ensures that no person can subscribe

someone else out of malice or error. The intention of the

term "double opt-in" is to make it appear that the

confirmation is a duplication of effort; and thus, to

justify not confirming subscriptions. Mail system

administrators and non-spam mailing list operators refer

to confirmed subscription or closed-loop opt-in.

Double opt-out

Same as Opt-In, but the recipient unsubscribes instead

of subscribes. Borderline spam operations frequently make

it difficult to unsubscribe from lists, in order to keep

their lists large. Hard-core spam operations make it

impossible -- they treat opt-out requests as confirmations

that the address works and is read.

E-mail Blast

An e-mail sent to multiple recipients, intended to inform

them of announcements, events or changes. A variety of

methods can be used to send the same e-mail to multiple

recipients: for example: using options within an e-mail

program, using the mail merge option within a word

processing program, or using a commercial e-mail list programs.

Express consent

A recipient agrees actively to subscribe by checking a

box on a web form, paper form or by telephone. A

recipient not unchecking a box is not express consent.

False positives

E-mail that is not spam but is labeled spam by a spam

filter of the recipient. Note that e-mail marketers may

have different opinions of what is "spam" than e-mail

recipients.

Format

E-mails can be sent in plain text, HTML, or Microsoft's

rich text format.

Hard bounce

Bounced e-mail that could never get through because the

e-mail address doesn't exist or the domain doesn't exist.

List broker

Reseller of lists of e-mail addresses.

List building

Process of generating a list of e-mail addresses for use

in e-mail campaigns.

List host

Web service that provides tools to manage large e-mail

address databases and to distribute large quantities of e-mails.

List manager

Owner or operator of opt-in e-mail newsletters or

databases. Also software used to maintain a mailing list.

Look and feel

Appearance, layout, design, functions & anything not

directly related to the actual message on an e-mail.

Open rate

E-mail open rate measures the ratio of e-mails "opened"

to the number sent or "delivered." The ratio is calculated

in various ways, the most popular is: e-mails delivered

(sent - hard bounces) /unique opens.

Opt-in

The action of agreeing to receive e-mails from a

particular company, group of companies or associated

companies, by subscribing to an e-mail list.

Opt-out

A mailing list which transmits e-mails to people who

have not subscribed and lets them "opt-out" from the

list. The subscribers' e-mail addresses may be harvested

from the web, USENET, or other mailing lists. ISP

policies and some regions' laws consider this equivalent

to spamming.

Personalization

The use of technology and customer information to

tailor e-mails between a business and each individual

customer. Using information previously obtained about

the customer, the e-mail is altered to fit that

customer's stated needs as well as needs perceived by

the business based on the available customer information,

for the purpose of better serving the customer by

anticipating needs, making the interaction efficient

and satisfying for both parties and building a

relationship that encourages the customer to return for

subsequent purchases.

Privacy

The Privacy Act of 1974, Public Law 93-579, safeguards

privacy through creating four procedural rights in

personal data. It requires government agencies to show

an individual any records kept on him/her; also requires

agencies to follow "fair information practices" when

gathering and handling personal data. It places

restrictions on how agencies can share an individual's

data with other people and agencies and also lets

individuals sue the government for violating its provisions.

Rental list

A mailing list that can only be used once or for a

limited time. The user of the list pays the owner of

the list less money than if he/she would have bought

the list outright. Note that this term is usually used

for lists generated by address harvesting or other

means; the investment made by the list creator does

not correlate with the permission of the e-mail

recipients. Many firms who "rent" or "buy" a list

face spam complaints afterward from persons who

never subscribed.

Segmentation (or Targeting)

The use of previously gathered information to send

e-mails of a particular offer to a subset of the list.

Soft bounce

A soft bounce is an e-mail that gets as far as the

recipient's mail server but is bounced back undelivered

before it gets to the intended recipient. it might

occur because the recipient's inbox is full. A soft

bounce message may be deliverable at another time or

may be forwarded manually by the network administrator

in charge of redirecting mail on the recipient's

domain. On the other hand, a hard bounce is an e-mail

message that has been returned to the sender because

the recipient's address is invalid.

Spam or UCE (Unsolicited Commercial e-mail-UCE)

From the sender's point-of-view, spam is a form of

bulk mail, often sent to a list obtained by companies

that specialize in creating e-mail distribution lists.

To the receiver, it usually seems like junk e-mail.

Spam is equivalent to unsolicited telemarketing calls

except that the user pays for part of the message

since everyone shares the cost of maintaining the

Internet. Spammers typically send a piece of e-mail

to a distribution list in the millions, expecting that

only a tiny number of readers will respond to their

offer. The term spam is said to derive from a famous

Monty Python sketch ("Well, we have Spam, tomato &

Spam, egg & Spam, Egg, bacon & Spam...") that was

current when spam first began arriving on the Internet.

SPAM is a trademarked Hormel meat product that was

well-known in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II.

Spam filter

Software that is usually installed in the users e-mail

client, with the purpose of avoiding spam e-mail to

get into the client's inbox or at least to be flagged

as such.

Subject line

It is one of the most important issues in e-mail marketing.

The better the subject line of an e-mail, the better

probability of being opened by the recipient.

Targeting (or segmentation)

Sending e-mails to a subset of a mailing list based

on a specific filter, trying to improve CTR and/or

open ratios.

Tracking

The act of reporting CTR, open ratios, bounces, etc.

Trigger based messaging

Triggering a message based on an event or interaction

with a previous message. Popular for customers who

request more information

Unique click

During a particular period, a visitor to a website

could click several times on a particular link, but

during that period it is counted only as one and

considered a unique visitor.

Unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE)

Commercial e-mail, usually of an advertising nature,

sent at the expense of the recipient without his or

her permission. Sending UCE is an offense against

all major ISPs' terms of service, and is a crime in

some jurisdictions.

 

External links

- The Email Forum

- E-mail marketing article on About.com

- SpamCon Foundation

- Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail

- Email Sender & Provider Coalition

 

 

If you liked this article, you can contact me by ICQ or email.

Ralph.