Kris Dougherty

I often hear people compare unwanted email to junk postal mail.  There is some validity to the comparison.  I know there have been times our home mailbox has been crowded (if not full) with offers that I never asked for.  At certain times of the year, we get catalogs galore, and probably half are from stores we've shopped.  The others range from alleged partners of those stores to the completely random.  This says nothing of the numerous offers from local businesses wanting me to paint my house, whiten my teeth, or dine at their restaurant, just because I'm within a given radius from one of their locations.  And there are different levels of personalization.  If you're sending me something, you should know I've never been too fond of being referred to as "Current Resident".

But I don't find myself getting as angry about postal junk mail as I do about email.  Perhaps it is because I work with permission-based email for a living. Maybe it is the frequency or volume.  Maybe it is the types of offers being sent (I'll guarantee my postal mailbox doesn't get nearly as racy as what I see via email.)  But more likely, for me anyway, it is because I know that there is a significant cost associated with postal mail.  If I receive a big, glossy catalog in the mail from someone I have no interest in purchasing from, I know it set them back a pretty penny.  If they're going to waste that on me, so be it. My only concern at that point is how to dispose of it (can I put that in curbside recycling or do I have to take it somewhere?)  I suppose I could be more environmentally conscious and ask them not to send to me any more (reducing the paper, ink, power and fuel needed to get it to me) but that's seems like a lot of work.  There's no "unsubscribe" button on my mailbox.  So, I take the approach of, "if I don't buy anything, they'll stop sending it.  And typically that is what happens.

But yesterday I received a piece of postal mail that really bothered me.  It was enough to make me throw the item down and select some colorful expletives to hurl at it (my wife can confirm that).  The item in question was a letter from our mortgage broker who, up until now, has sent fairly relevant mail about offers and trends in the market.  This one, though, was a long, rambling letter about how she has never embraced new technologies but had to learn to use text messaging to communicate with her teenage daughters.  I read through the entire thing, all the while waiting to get to the point where this had any bearing on me.  Was this leading up to an offer to sign up to receive texts when re-fi rates dropped to a certain level?  That would be cool, but no.  Was this a public service announcement about the dangers of teens using the technology inappropriately? That wouldn't be entirely out-of-line with some mailings I've received from real estate agents and brokers who feel they are part of their client's lives... but it didn't go there either.  It ended without having a point other than that she had a new technology that she had to adapt to.
And I was mad that I had just wasted my time reading it.  And I wanted an unsubscribe link soooo bad at that moment.  Actually, I wanted a "report spam" button.  It was no longer enough for me to know that the mailing had cost the sender money to get it to me.  I had read this only because it came from someone I trusted to send me information relevant to me.

And this whole thing made me think about email (surprise!)  Email is so inexpensive that many marketers don't bother with cleaning up their mailing lists.  They don't check to see who is engaged and who is not.  Even if they do, many don't do anything with the information (like attempt to re-engage with different offers, or cut recipients loose.)  And I find a lot of senders who don't bother to figure out not only whether, but why their emails are relevant or not.
Too many people are tuned into the low financial cost of sending email that they don't bother to think about the other costs associated with sending irrelevant or unwanted emails.  There is no barrier for complaining about an email.  And those complaints can hurt your delivery to those who actually do want it.  They can damage the reputation of your domain, making it harder to do business period.  And, yes, if there are enough of them, your ESP can terminate service.

So, do yourself a favor, and before your next campaign (regardless of how you send it), put yourself in the shoes of your recipients and ask "why do I care?"

Kris Dougherty | Deliverability & Operations