The new email marketing: dare we mention ethics?

Part 13 of an ongoing series...

(We're looking at the strategies and tactics that distinguish a smart email marketer from a bulk email marketer. See the New Email Marketing index page to access the rest of the series.)

What has ethics got to do with email marketing?*

Now there's a topic that can rapidly descend into pretentious nonsense. But bear with me: there are only so many times you can write about image blocking and subject lines.

Smart email marketing is de facto ethical email marketing.

Ignoring personal beliefs for the moment, let's look at that idea from a business perspective.

The practical argument

If we look back through this New Email Marketing series, there's a common theme: respect the relationship, accept accountability, shift the focus back to the subscriber.

Is that not ethical behavior?

In the past, technical aspects determined whether your email got through to recipients. Literally, by passing content filters, and psychologically, through their very presence in a virgin, largely unexploited inbox.

This is no longer the case.

Increasingly, both your ability to get email delivered and the recipient's willingness to engage with, respond to and be influenced by your messages depend on the "non-technical" aspects of your emails.

Trust, reputation, value, quality, relevance, respect, permission practices, dialog. Do you deserve a place in the inbox? Do you deserve attention?

All these qualities reflect or represent ethical email marketing. And it's these qualities that drive response and thus success.

Response also feedbacks to deliverability. Recipient reactions to your email determine whether or not those who process incoming email see your messages as wanted or unwanted (where unwanted = spam = rejected).

So there are clear practical advantages to ethical email marketing.

The broader argument

We all know people who cut a few ethical corners and make more sales as a result. The danger with email is that short-term gains often come at long-term expense. Both to individual success and at an industry level.

A pre-checked "subscribe me to your emails" box on your order form gets more opt-ins than the unchecked equivalent. But at what cost?

We see above that the trend in email marketing (and marketing in general) is to reward ethical behavior. A few extra sales today come at the expense of delivery, reputation and response problems down the road.

And that in an industry that can ill afford it.

For many outside the marketing world, email marketing is synonymous with spam. Just read some of the comments in this New York times blog post. Spam is what Simms Jenkins calls "the cloud that always hovers above what we do for a living."

As a result, there are plenty of people waiting for any excuse to make life harder for email marketers. Few people will complain if there is less commercial email out there.

So if legitimate email marketing wants respect, if it wants acceptance, if it wants longevity, if it wants success, then it needs to draw a clear line between itself and spam. Each time we cut one of those ethical corners, we give succor to those who don't see that line.

As our Greek friend Aristotle said:

"In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities."

Part 14 coming soon...

*In some parts of Florida that's a rhetorical question.

Tags: email marketing ethics, spam, marketing ethics

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