Mark Brownlow took my post about best practices and expanded on the theme. He is absolutely right and I encourage everyone to go read his article.
The takeaway here is not to rush out and start ignoring best practices. Without the background understanding, that way lies email marketing hell.
But if you can gain (or hire) a more nuanced understanding of issues, you might be able to break selected rules to the benefit of both you and your subscribers.
Exactly.
Yesterday, Ken Magill wrote about his experience with the Obama campaign’s open and unconfirmed marketing list. Ken, to see just how open the Obama subscription form was, subscribed using a valid email address but the name of Stupid Poopypants. As expected, mail to Ken from the Obama campaign was addressed to Stupid.
eROI uses this as an example of people who ruin their ROI by filling fake data into forms and ends their post by addressing Ken as follows:
Stephanie Miller from RP blogs at EEC about a UK consumer survey with the take home message: “consumers notice what email marketers do. When we send something interesting and relevant at a good pace, they are happy to stay active with our programs. When we don’t… well, then we’ve lost them, perhaps for good.”
Read MoreLast week, the state of Maine passed a law prohibiting marketing using personal information to minors without verifiable consent from a parent or guardian. From what I understand, this law started out as a prohibition on using health information for marketing and expanded to any personal information.
The law defines personal information as: