Most people receive a number of emails everyday and a typical reaction to a full inbox is to first delete unread mails from unknown addresses, to save time, and clear the inbox. Research reveals that this route is taken by at least 60% people.
The fear of receiving links to corrupted sites makes some recipients take harsher actions and reporting such mails as spam. This can be done by clicking on the spam button provided by the internet service provider. It has been found that over 23% use this reporting option, this includes those recipients that may have subscribed to the email originally but have since felt they are being spammed. For more information about SPAM click here.
These results are alarming and pose a great risk for businesses that do not pay sufficient attention to respecting the privacy and intelligence of clients when they send frequent, unsolicited mails or those with useless content. Sending out large batches of such emails may lead to the mail server of the company getting blocked, causing much damage to their reputation.
Some ways that emails can end up as SPAM include the following:
- Getting people to unsubscribe by sending irrelevant content- Statistics gathered by research organizations show that receivers hit the Spam button in an attempt to unsubscribe. The biggest factor responsible for them to wish to unsubscribe is content not measuring up to their expectations, or losing its relevance. Obviously when people subscribe to emails they have a set of expectations, which when not met, will make them wish to stop getting them.
- Ignoring ‘unsubscribe’ requests- Nothing annoys people more than finding their ‘unsubscribe’ request ignored. This will obviously force them to push the sender’s mails to spam. This is because they find themselves still on mailing lists when they do not want to be. Unwanted mails always end up in spam folders.
- Unappealing emails- People reading emails not only want good content, but also profession and well formatted emails that look appealing in terms of font, color, graphics and presentation. An unappealing email will put off the reader badly enough to push him towards hitting the spam button.
- Inaction against complaints- Subscribers may often have requests or complaints about some part of the emails they subscribe for. Repeatedly ignoring their complaints and not taking corrective action will put off the subscribers so much that they may report them as spam.
- Failing to send regular mails- When anyone subscribes to be part of a mailing campaign, they expect to receive emails and updates at regular intervals, whether weekly, fortnightly or monthly. Failure on the part of the sender to maintain that frequency will push the emails from subscribers’ memory, and will definitely move it to spam when they receive it again.
- Unsolicited mails to addresses from directories- Many businesses compile a mailing list by picking up email addresses from other directories they may have access to. Instead of soliciting permission or asking these people to subscribe, sending them emails regularly is bound to put them off and get your email moved to the spam folder.
Besides, if emails are sent through email client, or hundreds of mails are sent to the same domain, spamming is inevitable. Businesses need to realize the colossal loss they will incur by adopting any of the above mentioned policies for emailing, and ending up getting spammed.