What Do You Consider Spam?

In a past blog, I mentioned a few statistics showing that the average user does not think of spam the same way the CAN-SPAM law does. This suggestion is emphasized in an article from MarketingProfs.

These are the results of a survey conducted by Epsilon of 4000 users who were asked what they would call spam:

• It tries to trick recipients into opening a message (74%)
• Contains offensive subject matter (68%)
• Is completely unsolicited (62%)
• Comes from senders who are unknown to the recipient (61%)
• Unwanted for any reason, regardless of subscriptions (37%)
• Comes from companies with which the recipient has done business, but arrives too frequently (27%)
• Tries to sell a product or service even when the recipient knows the company (24%)

So what’s the moral of the story? Always consider the end user. An email might look nice and have great information, but if it isn’t what the user was expecting, you may lose the ability to market to them in the future.