The Email Wars

Over the past few months I have personally been under a massive attack from people now using the “Freemium” model that so many small business ESPs have opened up and offered to their “clients”/personally I want to call them users. This is a personal stance post here and should have no reflection on anyone but me, but I am quite tired of the free ESP services. Why? Well they are giving anyone with the ability to upload a list the ability to email me. It opens up the just because you can does not mean you should debate I often have with people new to email marketing (yes there are always people new to it).

I am a firm believer that not everyone should have access to an ESP platform unless they have some skin in the game. Use your gmail, msn, yahoo, personal email to get a personal relationship with me. Free accounts simply allow people to take liberties with email and blatantly goes against all the best practices and rules we all fight so hard to instill and drive.

I put this discussion with other examples out to a “Email List” I am on. One person wanted to challenge me if it was a bad business model if it was not causing any deliverability or reputation issues to their IP. Larger picture here… it is causing a reputation issue on a personal level with me and many others whom I have talked to about this same issue over the past few months… and I can only assume that the larger issue is it is not just with me but with millions of other people that are exploiting these free accounts for under X contacts etc. If you are just after the money and not the education, monitoring, reputation and driving people to use email responsibly (sounds like a Nancy Reagan 1982 drug stump here) then why are you in this business? You are running the risks of damaging email marketing for those that are doing it right and respecting customer/subscriber relationships.

This was the one email that put me over the top recently. You are actually emailing me admitting you are not sure how we are connected. Maybe it is LinkedIn. Maybe MSN. Who knows…. but can I follow you on Twitter? Really? Must be another social media expert blowing up his/her followers. Good luck with that.

No I can’t freind/follow/hold you but I can use the SafeUnsubscribe as I want to be safe and never get an email from you again.

Now I am not going off to file spam complaints, I will use the “Unsubscribe/SafeUnsubscribe/OneClick whatever you want to call it” link, but I will also be forwarding it to abuse@ each ESP. Guys (ESPs) you need to pay attention here and not be asleep at the wheel. If you are going to make a business decision to give everyone the ability to email you need to commit to education, policing and enforcement of best practices and laws.

Does anyone else agree with me here? Will these free email ESP accounts harm the industry more than propel revenues?

KThxBai