Talk:E-mail marketing

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[edit] "E-mail marketing terms" problems

I'm not sure if this half-finished glossary really needs to be here at all. But, assuming that it does, some concerns:

Some of the "e-mail marketing terms" in this article are marketing terms not specific to e-mail, such as demographic or (market) segmentation.

Others are e-mail terms not specific to marketing, such as subject line or false positive..

Still others are spammer argot, such as "double opt-in" as a term for closed-loop (confirmed) opt-in. The term "double opt-in" is intended to suggest that the practice of operating forgery-proof mailing lists involves duplication of effort. (See, e.g., Spamhaus on the subject.)

--FOo 23:34, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think that the glossary helps understand what Email marketing is about, so it should stay. And yes, some marketing terms are not only the "property" of email marketing, but pertain to all marketing and maybe other areas, but I think it is not incorrect to list them if they are relevant to Email marketing. Spammers argot should be included, and you should include some text to that respect, explaining in detail what you mean. I my POV, the more info, the better.--AAAAA 12:45, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I also think it should stay, but I agree with foo, especially about the spammer lingo in the list. The only people who use the terms "opt-out" and "double opt-in" are spammers, which we should say. I wouldn't want someone to think this was a list of neutral, accepted terms when some of them are actually red flags. Rhobite 20:12, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)
I think Rhobite's edits are appropriate, except for the un-bolding of the terms. I think it looks better with them in BOLD. Also, I would let ALL words stay and write any relevant comments. I think Spammers are also E-mail marketers and their lingo SHOULD BE INCLUDED. Although I certainly don't like spammers.--AAAAA 05:26, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yeah, I've always been against copious boldspace but it's a judgment call. I believe the manual of style says boldface should only be used for the first mention of the article's title, alternate names, and subtopics. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be used for definition lists. Rhobite 05:35, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)
Could be, but I still think bolding the terms makes it more readable. It's easier to "hone in" to a term.--AAAAA 05:40, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Here here to a sticksy subject well handled. I think the author did a good job of being unbiased and I think the glossary is helpful to everyone.

The following is also at least partially a terminology problem, and I'm not really sure what to do about it:

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.

The problem here is that legitimate and spam marketing e-mail are not necessarily dichotomous. Spam is simply unsolicited bulk e-mail, but what is meant with "legitimate" is less well-defined. If it means "legal to send", then there is both legitimate spam and illegitimate non-spam (at least depending on the jurisdiction). If it means "considered acceptable to send" (by whom?), it becomes a matter of POV, and "difficult to distinguish" is no longer an appropriate description of the situation.

There is dichotomy if and only if "legitimate" is defined to be "not spam", but then there is no longer any real difficulty in distinguishing between them (by a human, that is). It simply reduces to whether you were solicited for permission or not and whether you granted it or not. Spammers might pretend that sending you mail is the same thing as asking for permission to send you mail, or that your not telling them to stop constitutes permission to send you more mail, but this is too much against common sense to be taken seriously. No, at this level there is no problem at all.

I think the real problem is on the level of terminology and deciding what is acceptable to send. Spammers redefining "spam" to mean something else than "unsolicited bulk e-mail" or saying "that person opted in" to mislead people to think that the person really did give permission when the spammer actually means "my search program found the e-mail address on the web" are examples of terminology problems. Deciding what is acceptable to send is a problem, because "acceptable" is not necessarily the same as "legal" or "not spam", and what it should exactly mean is not agreed on by everyone.

OTOH, legitimate marketers can steer clear of the whole thing by always using confirmed subscription with people who don't otherwise receive mail from them and describing the system shortly instead of relying on terminology that can be misunderstood whenever discussing about it, so I don't see how this is a big problem. I agree with http://www.spamhaus.org/mailinglists.html on this: "The difference between senders of legitimate bulk email and spammers couldn't be clearer, the legitimate bulk email sender has verifiable permission from the recipients before sending, the spammer does not." (apparently spamhaus uses the definition that "legitimate" = "not spam", which is safe for the marketer) Coffee2theorems 19:18, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Irony - this article being used to spam my website

Slightly ironically, a spammer just posted a copy of this article on one of my forums, with some of the links changed to point to their own site. Googling, it seems that this is not restricted to my site - a user calling himself "Ralph_o_pedia_911" has also spammed several others. If anyone wants to see the spam message, I've got it archived on my website (hidden, so you'll need to ask to see it), or alternatively google for "Ralph_o_pedia_911" and many of the sites he's spammed will appear. It's a pity we can't do anything to stop him. :-( Mike Peel 05:55, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opt-in e-mail advertising merged into E-mail marketing article completed

I merged Opt-in e-mail advertising into this article where it belong as you will probably agree, if you look at the article now and have a closer look at the content that came from the Opt-in e-mail advertising article. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 12:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, these two articles are better merged. Thank you. Wrs1864 14:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GREEN - obviously email marketing is massively GREEN?

Hi,

I don't really see how this claim can be really made, that SPAM is "Green" or Environmentally Friendly.

The electricity which all of the SPAM related activity (sending and receiving) requires has to be generated somewhere.

In many countries this is generated through non-renewal or polluting forms of electricity generation.

While no paper is used in generating SPAM there is an environmental cost which has to be accounted for.

Unless all parts of the SPAM process are using renewable sources of energy and carbon offsetting to mitigate their impact then this has a negative impact as a whole.

Regards

Simon —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SimonZerafa (talk • contribs) 10:47, 16 May 2007 (UTC).

comment. Email marketing is not SPAM. While the things you mentioned might be appropriate in the article about email spam, does it not belong into this one. The statement that legit (non-spam) email marketing requires less energy to produce and the use of less irretrievable resources is without any doubt proofen. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 16:50, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Low cost reference

I removed the reference for "The advantage of a mailing list is clearly the ability to distribute information to a wide range of specific, potential customers at a relatively low cost.".

The reference was this one: Turlington, K: http://www.leadsedge.com/mailing_list/mailing-list-02.php "Email Marketing", Mailing List Advantages, August 2005

The link is broken. If anybody could find a good reference that compares cost for email marketing versus cost for snail mail, that would be great. --roy<sac> Talk! .oOo. 11:55, 4 September 2007 (UTC)