The Alternate and Painfully Obsolete World of Ken Magill

It's a lazy Memorial Day morning...reading in bed, and wham! Time to dive into the crapola that persists in the world of Direct Marketing.

Disclaimer: I don't hate DM, as one working for an online retailer, DM is a necessity, that's why I subscribe to Direct in the first place. In the online world, it just needs a dose of reality for its own benefit, maybe even its survival.

Yes, Ken Magill, we should most definitely Put a Lid on This can of Worms - let's start with the notion that somehow the concept of email opt-in is only for those "who pack Happy Meals". Yes, let's all put a lid on your painfully outdated, quixotic, scream at the wind.

Regardless of what you think, or what CAN SPAM does, technology moves on at it's own pace - the pace of what users demand. You may want to take a quick read of the article right before your opinion piece (Email's Metric Mess, page 49, Direct Mag, May 2007), read between the lines, and start asking yourself such illuminating things like:

• What? A junk folder in user's desktop email?
• Just why do you think images don't appear in email? Has it always been this way?
  

What does this have to do with your drivel? Well, let's keep it simple and real. People are tired of SPAM/UCE plain and simple, and technology answered with an entire industry devoted to anti-x solutions (re: anti-spam, anti-adware, anti-spyware, etc.). Even the simplest and free email clients have basic junk mail filters. Unlike the offline world of postal mail, this combination does affect "deliverability", in whatever definition you want to give it.

The reality that you painfully miss is this: Yes, legitimate email is caught in this murderous funnel, along with plain junk, not because of some abstract hatred of anything resembling a marketing message, but simply because the funnel can't tell which is which. You can scream at the imperfection of technology as much as you want, but that is the reality.

Why has it come to this? Simple fact: there are those who will abuse the system and can and have. CAN SPAM has been abused, not by legitimate email marketers to be sure, but caught in the haze nonetheless. It has been abused to the point that it is absolutely ridiculous for anyone to sift through hundreds (even thousands) of email "dumped" into a Junk Folder, to find "good email". If it's tagged as Junk Mail, forget about it, the only real activity following that is pressing the DELETE ALL key. In fact, whether or not CAN SPAM exists is immaterial to those who abuse it.

The online community has demanded opt-in. As someone working for online retail, we have followed this "unspoken" rule. When double opt-in came about, those who truly understand the nature of how things can be abused, adopted it. Even with these efforts, it has been a painful battle, not against anti-x systems, but those that abuse these systems thereby increasing "collateral damage".

Do you want to save email as a marketing tool? Then do help put a lid on the can of worms. The only hope is differentiation. And the easiest way for both sides is an opt-in system, and even better, a double opt-in system. This is the only practical way to come to terms with the "unspoken rule", yes, the online standard. With a double opt-in system, there may even be a place for a white list directory of those who stand by it, a "better AOL CertifiedEmail" if you will.

You can continue to scream at the wind, ride along those who abuse the system, but in the end, everyone loses. If your email is in the same pool of junk, it will be junked. Make no mistake, upcoming technology will make the current "email grinder" pale in comparison. Unless you start truly understanding this, there is little hope for email marketing - regardless of what you abide by (CAN SPAM, opt-in, double opt-in, or just spam away).

If there is one thing I agree with you, it is that yes, we can forget this can of worms called CAN SPAM and apply the golden rule: the customer is always right. Listen.