Why B2B Marketers Must Stop Spamming
There are more reasons than you may realize
Buy a big list, shoot out a zillion emails and as long as you’re getting at least a .02% response rate you’re kicking butt. How bad can it be?
It turns out, it’s bad. Really bad. There are many reasons to stop spamming.
First of all, no one likes it. And I’m not just talking about the recipients, which is bad enough. I’m talking about the email service providers. Because all that email clogs things up. And customers complain, which makes the service providers look bad. In case it’s not immediately obvious, purchased email lists are just a huge no-no. So what do ISPs do?
ISPs retaliate, of course
But they do it in sneaky ways that you’ll never find out about. So a lot of your emails may simply never get delivered.
Why don’t they get delivered, you ask? Because that list you have is full of zombie accounts that no one has looked at in two years, or accounts that have completely ceased to exist. Or your emails are not getting past the spam filters and the ones that do are being deleted without being opened.
At this point, alarm bells go off and your service provider says, ”Hey, wait a minute . . . stop spamming! Spam’s illegal (has been since 2003. You’ll get dinged 11K every time you do it. You did know that, right?) so no way this is getting delivered!
Now your ROI for email marketing is much lower than promised. And if you push the envelope just far enough the ESPs may go as far as canceling your account, which is another pain you probably don’t want to have to deal with.
It doesn’t stop there, though
You know how you’ve spent years working to nurture trusting relationships with your customers so that you stand for something that matters — dependability, service, deep understanding — whatever it is? So that when customers see your logo they instantly know what to expect from you?
When you don’t stop spamming, you tarnish that reputation. You look desperate, as though you’re completely out of ideas and you’re circling the drain.
It’s like finding out that your kid’s kindergarten teacher has been laundering money on the side. You still want to trust them but suddenly the whole relationship is really awkward. They seem ok but you just never know what they’re going to do next. So you pull away. Distance yourself.
The last thing you want is your customers pulling away and distancing themselves.
While spamming may look like an attractive short term solution to acquisition problems, it brings with it a whole suite of nightmarish issues that could easily sink your business without a trace.
So unless you’re prepared to change your business model to an all-spam-all-the-time approach and hope for the best, it’s probably better to seek out email essentials that are actually sustainable. That way, instead of flying into a blind rage when they see your name in their inbox, customers will be delighted instead. Which, in our experience, is just the way you want them to be.
And, as it turns out, you’re in exactly the right place to make that happen.
Originally published at https://digitalmeaning.co on August 29, 2019. Digital Meaning is a strategic marketing and creative support agency for select B2B clients.
