Everyday, emails flood our inboxes, the vast majority of which is consigned to the junk folder. But it is not always spam-filtering software that casts that fatal judgement on every dubious email – indeed, the most powerful spam filter is that of the discerning human mind, which speedily analyses every message that flashes across the user’s screen. Time-pressed and all too familiar with the sales language that riddles all media forms, any email that has the slightest hint of a sales pitch is wiped from existence with the click of a mouse.
Spam is a nuisance that is met with much irritation throughout the world. Reactions to spam tend to range from simply ignoring or deleting to blocking incoming emails from suspect addresses and reporting them to an Internet service provider for further investigation. This is an unfortunate state of affairs for businesses like yours, who harmlessly seek new and creative ways to reach existing and potential clients. Not only might the time and money that you invest in an ambitious email marketing campaign give you little or no return because your subscriber base views your emails predominantly as spam, you might be causing irreparable long-term damage to your brand image and alienating your customers in the process.
But email marketing is such a powerful and cost-effective tool that businesses like yours need to persist in your search for new ways of building a stronger relationship with your subscriber base. To do this, you must first lend credibility to the voice of your organisation through your emails. A range of techniques exist which allow you to do this, the foremost of which is to make your emails informative in the first instance, rather than outright persuasive.