I usually don’t mix politics with my Act! consulting but I read an article over the weekend that just fascinated me mainly because it showed that even the wealthiest folks with ostensibly the best consultants can run amok when it comes to e-marketing. Unfortunately, the story reminded me of all too many of my Act! e-marketing prospects!
It seems that “the Donald” forayed rather late into e-marketing and sent somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-60 million emails to possible campaign contributors. According to ReturnPath, “79% of the fundraising emails were caught in spam filters.“
So why the high return path? Those of us familiar with e-marketing best practices think that Trump probably purchased or rented his lists of e-mail addresses rather than developing a list organically by soliciting the addresses directly from the recipients.
Sound familiar? I am often contacted by Act! users who want to dive into Act! E-Marketing or SwiftPage E-marketing to build their businesses. Unfortunately, they want to take the same short cut that Mr. Trump took and purchase a list or use very old, out-dated data. Bad idea!
Email service providers such as Act! E-Marketing and SwiftPage E-Marketing work extremely hard to make sure that their customers remain Spam compliant. In the E-Marketing industry a bounce rate of over 20% usually indicates that your data is outdated, inaccurate or, as in Trump’s case, was purchased from a list and never allowed the recipients the rite to “opt-in.” Most service providers will cut you off if your bounce rate reaches 22-24%. You can see why 79% would be considered problematic!
You can read the entire article here.
Don’t get me wrong. I think e-marketing is a great way to reach out to your prospects and stay in touch with your customers if you do it correctly.
If you need help getting started with either the Act! E-Marketing or SwiftPage E-Marketing products please contact the Act! Consultants at Tech Benders so you too don’t get marked as a Spammer!
