Originally published November 3 2003
Amazon walks thin line between helpful email and spam
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
I included this article simply because it brings up the point of Amazon.com and that company's opt-in, yet unsolicited email. Amazon's use of highly relevant email marketing blurs the line between spam and permission email for many people. Here's why:
Amazon might send you an email recommending a book that's entirely in line with the books you've already purchased. Most people receive these emails and think, 'Hey, Amazon is doing a good job. This book might actually be interesting to me.'
A few people, however, immediately drop into an anti-spam war cry, blaming Amazon for filling their inbox with email they didn't ask for.
Now let's get technical for a moment. You didn't actually ask for this email from Amazon, and it certainly qualified as UCE (unsolicited commercial email). Yet, at the same time, you do have a prior customer relationship with them, and the email is highly relevant to your interests. So, is this email spam or not?
I say this isn't spam at all. It's permission email, and Amazon.com does permission email marketing the right way: with relevancy. People who call this spam are plainly overreacting to the real spam on the 'net: the Viagra-hawking spam that has no relevancy whatsoever.
In fact, if all email marketers took the same care that Amazon takes to send only relevant email, spam wouldn't be the problem it is today.
- Darren Richards founder of DatingDirect.com, feels that email
marketing should be opt-in and feels there is no such a thing as good
spam.
- I don't get many to my work account, but we have a corporate address
that gets filled to the brim with emails as far fetched as 'how to lose
weight in 10 hours' to the mandatory invitations to adult sites.
- I have five - our corporate and press email accounts, which are
directed to my inbox, my private work account and two private addresses.
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