Bad email marketing can be harmful to health

Ill-considered email marketing campaigns can do serious damage to an organisation, says e-marketing guru Nick Pauley of Shortburst.

Many companies are still taking a DIY approach to email marketing by despatching badly constructed emails which not only look unprofessional but in many cases flout European law and cause negative reactions.

Email marketing done badly can impact reputation and have an effect on the likelihood of sales.

Marketing managers need to wise up otherwise they'll continue to make mistakes and these will inevitably take a toll on their company's reputation.The most basic principles are often disregarded: for instance, is not legal to send email marketing material to a private individual out of the blue unless you have their explicit permission; neither is acceptable for the message to arrive with massive graphics files attached to it, or worse still, as a page of unintelligible computer code.

Consumers faced with a relentless stream of unsolicited and badly designed marketing emails will react negatively.

An organisation is judged on the quality of its marketing and there is a very fine line between acceptable email marketing and spam and it is one that some otherwise highly respectable organisations fail to recognise.

What might be quite acceptable to one person will be another person's spam.

No one can draw a hard and fast line, so the best way to approach it is to use common sense.

Adhere to current legislation - that's a 'must'.

Ask readers what email communication they want and when they want it, design it properly and promptly unsubscribe recipients when they ask.

If you approach it that way you can't go too far wrong.

Done well e-marketing can bring enormous benefits, but done badly it can dent the reputation of an organisation and impact the 'bottom line'.

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