|
3 Key Strategies to ensure your messages are not perceived as spam When you hear the phrase ‘electronic marketing’ do you immediately think ‘Spam’ or do you think ‘courteously keeping in touch with your clients and customers, in a value-adding way, leading to long term satisfied clients’?
Wouldn't it be brilliant if your contacts looked forward to receiving your messages which are occasionally humorous, but always useful and sent at the right regularity? Your contacts will refer to your message at a convenient time, file it away for later use or occasionally send it to a colleague when appropriate. Over time, your contacts will be educated and assisted to do business more easily with you and they certainly won’t forget who you are. That’s what your regular communications should achieve…as opposed to making your contacts think you are spamming them.
The most important thing for businesses is to ensure that people receiving your messages don't perceive them to be Spam. None of us want the negative impact on our business or organisation of having our contacts thinking that we are spamming them, whether or not we are compliant according to the letter of the law.
 Here are three key strategies to help ensure that your contacts do not perceive your messages to be Spam.
Ensure your contacts really are expecting your emails or SMS messages
e your There are 3 key things you need to do to comply with the Australian Spam Act - gain consent, identify the sender and allow people to easily unsubscribe. Included in the Act is a concept of an implied consent. However, to ensure that your emails are not perceived as spam, you need to make sure that your contacts know they have consented and are in fact expecting both the messages and the type of content you provide in them.
Here's a simple example of how to get acknowledged consent: you attend a networking event and have a conversation with someone who is very interested in what you do. You ask them “would you like to go on my mailing list to receive monthly information?”
If, however, you purchase something from a website and as part of the purchase there's a pre-ticked box asking you if you want to subscribe to their newsletter, then you may get a surprise when the first newsletter arrives. Not everyone will notice the tick box, or read the text beside it. Best practice is to have the tick box clear by default and require that the purchaser pro-actively chooses to opt in.
Choose an appropriate frequency and stick to it
It is important to set the expectation of how frequently your messages will be sent, and to stick to that. The frequency you choose should be appropriate for your target audience and your topic. Inappropriate frequency can lead to a perception that you are spamming people, even though you have obtained consent.
Add value
Making your messages appropriate to the target audience and giving them something of value is critical in keeping people reading your messages, sending them onto others, holding your business in high regard and continuing to do business with you over the long term. by Heather Maloney, Managing Director, Contact Point IT Services
Heather Maloney is the Managing Director of Contact Point IT Services and developer of eNudge - www.enudge.com.au For regular updates on email marketing, sms marketing and the spam act, subscribe to eNudge News. source: http://www.womensnetwork.com.au
|