Under no circumstances
will I
ever purchase anything offered to me as
the result of an
unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I
forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This
is my contribution to the survival of the online community. Roger Ebert
The use of email has the potential to eliminate much of the costs associated with sending correspondence through regular mail. Invoices can be sent by email speeding up the payment process. Email can also connect individuals on a global basis in ways
that have
not been possible in the past.
Environmentalists were thrilled that fewer trees would be needed in a paperless exchange of communication, but theres been a blight in cyberspace known as
spam. Those who receive spam
emails are about as
impressed as those moments at during the evening
meal when all telemarketers seem to make calls. The truth is no one likes spam.
Spam is putting the Internet in jeopardy. Phillip Hallam-Baker
Many companies have responded to the
difficulties with spam by providing consumers with spam blockers that eliminate most of the spam messages that are sent via cyberspace.
While this is wonderful news for consumers it provides unique challenges for passing along information to
customers though bulk
mail features
even when your
customer opts in to a company mailing list.
Many spam blockers see bulk mail of any sort as spam and will typically block those emails. Some programs allow you to review the mail marked as spam to determine if you want to accept it as regular mail, but other programs block it
before it ever comes to your in box.
"The spam wars are about rendering email useless for unsolicited advertising before unsolicited advertising renders email useless for communication." Walter
Dnes & Jeff Gin
If the above quote is the litmus test for spam wars
then this warfare is being won by zealous spam blocking software.
Many legitimate emails are now being sent to a large number of subscribers in a rolling delivery. By limiting the number of emails being sent to opt-in clients, business interests are finding better success in delivering requested materials.
Perhaps
there will
come a day when there will be a more sophisticated method of differentiating between legitimate bulk mail and spam, until then online marketers are finding increasing success through the use of blogs, optimized site
content, forums and RSS feeds as an effective alternative.
Scott Lindsay is a
web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with
http://HighPowerSites.com at:
http://www.highpowersites.com.