Published Work

How to Eat E-Mail Spam For Breakfast

I'm not bothered by just any old spam. I don't mind getting an offer to buy a product or service just once or twice. Maybe I wasn't truly listening the first time. It's a free market economy and the American way at work. After I get 100 spam offers for the same product or service, though, what can I do?

Where can I go to put my name on a list of people who have already seen the Paris Hilton video? What if I already use Xanax and I don't yet need Viagra? I have refinanced my house at a very low rate, so I don't need another mortgage.

What if I'm not interested in having any of my body parts made longer? Send any new offers for products my way but can I get off the list for these specific spam e-mails? Maybe they could check me off a list so I am never asked to use any of these products again. This would cut my e-mails by 200 a day.

The subject lines of e-mails amaze me.

While it may be tempting to look at some more provocatively titled e-mails like "your Valium is ready," I question why I would open an e-mail addressed as "good news for your colon." My grade school son wants to know why he receives e-mails titled "meet singles in your area." He knows plenty of "singles" at school and doesn't need help finding new ones.

Maybe the newest bill passed by Congress, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2004, will help. It will eliminate the myriad spam laws that are scattered through 37 states. The new law gives criminal penalties for sending business e-mail with deceptive subject lines and sending e-mail not including "a functioning return" address.

It also has become illegal to link to a Web form that can't accept unsubscribe requests. It prohibits collecting e-mail addresses by programs that surf the Web. The bill also promises to sentence violators to up to five years in prison. This hardly seems enough considering I have probably spent months of my life deleting the stuff they send me.

We all rely on e-mail heavily for business. With all this spam clogging our business mailboxes, how do you cut through all the noise? This was the challenge that has faced business direct mail marketers for years. The competition for the end user's mailbox is fierce these days. What tips work for business e-mail marketing so you can cut through the spam?

E-Mail Subject Lines

Forget "hi" or "how are you." These will probably be deleted by spam filters.

Sonny Cohen at Chicago-based duo says, "Your e-mail subject line is the key to gaining e-mail acceptance. Give as much thought to your subject line as you do to the entire e-mail content. Each word and character is precious. You have about 35 to 40 characters. You have four to six words to gain the trust and interest of your recipient."

I believe that the single best subject line is "referred by" (the name being someone that the person who you are trying to get in touch with recognizes).

Return Addresses

Cohen also advises that you need to think of e-mail as "a very personal medium. Therefore, to have an effective business e-mail relationship, your communication should be from a real person and should be addressed to your specific recipient. Info@mybusiness.com or simply "YYY Firm Newsletter" is ineffective while sonny@duodesign.com or "Sonny Cohen" is very effective."

Language

The words "free" or "special offer" continue to be the most successful marketing words. Still, Cohen warns that it is almost guaranteed to be captured by a spam filter. He recommends that we know what the spam filters trap. Carefully choose the words in your subject line and the e-mail copy itself to avoid having your e-mail trapped.

Attachments

Attachments are a big no-no especially for business people who have had their computers sabotaged by many innocent-looking files. When I see an attachment from someone I don't know, I delete it. When I see an attachment from someone I do know, I examine its relevancy and type before I decide to open it.

Content

Tim Bay at SGS Net still believes that the best way to "stand out in the clutter of someone's inbox is to make sure you are providing something of value in your e-mail. For consumers, this can be a tip on how to better use your product, a special offer for more or complimentary products or recommended products based on whatever information you have about your client."

For business owners, general information on how your customers can improve their business or news on product updates work well.

Bay states that if you continue to demonstrate the value of your e-mail communications, you should be able to gain trust from your customers. That increases the likelihood that they will read your e-mail message and their desire to act on it.

E-Mail Timing

Bay believes that timing is very important in business. He added: "If you send an e-mail Friday afternoon, the recipient may not retrieve messages until Monday morning and your e-mail will be behind 100 others. Instead, for example, if you send it Tuesday morning at 10 a.m., you are likely to have much less competition."

Incidentally, while I was writing this column, I received another 89 spam emails.

Forty-three asked me if I want to see Paris Hilton again, 14 were about making my body parts longer, 19 were about the purchase of Viagra, 17 were about "hot" new adult Web sites and nine were mortgage offers. The final one was called "nuke those hated advertisers." Sure, this is a novel penalty, but it's a bit rash. Luckily, the delete key is my friend.