What email users say: Part 2 (spam, value and branding)

Part 1 of this series examined user attitudes to email and commercial email in general. Now let’s explore the distinction they make between commercial email and spam.

This distinction is obviously important.

Nobody should want to send spam, and not just for ethical reasons: if you send spam, expect a hit to your brand and image. And expect people to report you as such, which leads to blacklisting and other problems.

It’s all about individual perceptions here, so let go of your own opinions. Everyone has their own definition and what matters is what recipients think: they’re the ones with the finger on the (delete) button.

So what criteria do users apply to define spam? Let’s begin with the obvious…

Spam is unsolicited

Spam is…email I didn’t ask for. (surprise!)

• 73% of North Americans surveyed in the Epsilon Global Consumer Email Study defined spam as “Any email I receive that I did not ask for or subscribe to”
• 60% of those questioned by a MAAWG consumer study defined spam as “email I did not request”

Don’t look away. This definition includes email you think you have implicit permission to send, because they know you:

• ExactTarget’s 2009 Channel Preference Study asked people to rank the acceptability of promotional messages on a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best). Permission-based email came in at an average 4.1, email with no permission but a prior business relationship scored a 2.5 and email from businesses they’d never interacted with just 1.7
• In an informal survey by the eec Consumer Education Roundtable, 76% of respondents defined spam as “Any email I didn’t ask for, even if it’s from a brand I know.”
• …and 34% of those Epsilon respondents agreed that spam was “emails from companies I have a relationship with offline, but to whom I never gave permission to contact me via email.”

So you can argue about prior business relationships as justification for emailing, but know that this will not prevent some people seeing that as spam.

If you’re not focused on delivering value, you’re a spammer

Spam is…email I don’t want.

And here’s the rub. It’s email that users don’t want, even if they asked for it.

In the Epsilon study, for example, 39% agreed that spam was “Any email I receive that I don’t want, regardless of whether I subscribed” and 39% also agreed that it was “An email from a company I may have given permission to send me mail at one time, but that I no longer wish to receive.”

Equally important, the people who run email at ISPs and webmail services agree. Note the wording used by Gmail’s anti-spam czar:

“Some of you already use the “Report Spam” button on all kinds of unwanted email, and for that we’re very thankful.”

…which explains why ISPs have added engagement metrics to the list of factors contributing to your sender reputation.

We all know that we should deliver value through email.

Except we don’t.

Because even a low response rate is enough to make email marketing profitable.

So we’re happy to send email that gets responses from a few recipients, not realizing the poor impression we’re making on the rest.

And it’s not just about perceptions. Many consumer surveys highlight “lack of relevancy” as a top reason for unsubscribing.

• In Merkle’s 2009 View from the Inbox, 75% gave relevancy as a reason to unsubscribe
• 67% of the North Americans surveyed by Epsilon cited “irrelevant content” as a reason
• In a UK study by Emailcenter, almost 70% mentioned “no relevant products”
• …and a recent survey by the CMO Council and InfoPrint found 46% unsubscribing because the emails “are not relevant to me”

And no, most emails aren’t relevant, whatever senders might think. That UK study also asked consumers what proportion of the marketing emails they get are of interest. Over 70% said a quarter or less.

Deliverability is a branding issue, too

Spam is…email that lands in the junk folder.

• 45% of those Epsilon respondents agreed that spam was emails that are filtered into the junk mailbox
• 41% of those in the MAAWG study said it was “email in spam folder”

Well, duh! But hang on…think about the reverse philosophy.

If you have delivery issues and land in the spam folder, will people start to think of you as spam, even if you’re not?

Yikes. We tend to evaluate delivery in terms of positive responses. As long as our success metrics are good enough, we can tolerate the odd missing email.

But that missing email isn’t having a neutral impact. It’s hurting your image. It’s another reason to focus on improved delivery, even if you have a successful program.

It doesn’t stop there, either.

Bad email has a cost attached to it

I’ve talked before about the hidden costs of lazy email marketing. Here’s the evidence:

• In Merkle’s 2009 View from the Inbox, 32% of respondents declared they’d stopped doing business with one or more companies due to the latter’s poor email marketing practices
• The CMO Council/InfoPrint survey found 22% of respondents had stopped purchasing from a company because of the overwhelming impersonal clutter caused by irrelevant email or direct mail promotions

Again, focusing only on immediate success metrics (opens, clicks, conversions) disguises the true impact of your email efforts. This works both ways, of course. For example:

• The Epsilon study also found a significant number of respondents purchasing offline in person or via phone as a result of opening permission-based marketing email
• 50% of respondents in Merkle’s View from the Inbox said good emails influenced their decision to do on- or offline business with a company
• In the same study, 35% said they were more likely to “…spend more money with a company who sends them email they read regularly than a comparable one who doesn’t communicate via email”

Keep tabs on frequency

Spam is…email that comes too often.

As with the relevancy/value issue, too many emails can induce a “this is spam” response and drive unsubscribes.

• 31% of North Americans surveyed by Epsilon described “emails from a company I have done business with but that come too frequently” as spam
• The same survey found 64% saying they unsubscribe because emails come too frequently
• Merkle’s 2009 View from the Inbox found 66% describing frequency issues as a reason to unsubscribe
• Emailcenter’s UK survey found just over 62% saying that “they send too many emails” was a factor causing them to want to stop receiving marketing email
• The CMO Council/InfoPrint survey found 23% citing too many emails to manage as a reason to unsubscribe

A key point here is, again, perceptions. Emailcenter also found that over half of those surveyed said companies send them more emails than they expected.

There’s a difference between “too many emails” and “more emails than expected”. The latter issue might be solved by setting appropriate expectations during the sign-up process. The former by giving those who wish to unsubscribe the option to stay on your list but get fewer emails.

A user’s perception of email overload is intimately tied to the perception of the value delivered by those emails. It’s a concept you can exploit to let you send more email and keep the subscriber happy.

Part 3

So we now understand the different ways users define spam and why they unsubscribe from marketing emails.

How do they make the judgment call? What action do they then take to tackle spam or unsubscribe? And how can you ensure your emails are treated positively? Part 3 has some answers…

Find related articles:

• Channel: Email user research

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