I’ts an important question to reflect on before giving a go-ahead on any email marketing campaign. Personally, I hate spam as much every other person out there, I like the concept of using purely opt in lists or double opt in lists to run email campaigns but practically I also know not everyone can build perfect opt in or permission based lists and rely solely on them. I am not against email marketing on custom built targeted email lists just as I’m not completely opposed to cold calling and believe they can both be effective “if done right“.  I also realized I just made a rather bold move defending the use of non-optin lists to send out emails to companies as a marketing strategy and I just set myself up for a lot of flak for making this statement. But before we go straight to the comments section below think about this question. How do you perceive spam and when do you consider an email spam?

When I get an email which is completely irrelevant to what I do, who I am and  what I may be interested in, it’s no longer email to me…its spam.

• I am a B2B marketer (at least when I am in the office and at work I am) 
• I generate leads, look for new ways to drive more customers towards our business and manage marketing projects (its what I do)
• I am interested in anything that helps me become a better marketer, helps me drive more customers, helps the business serve customers better (is some of what interests me)

If I get an email from an unknown company and an unknown person with an email on “Join Us For The IT Security Systems Configuration Training Seminar” that is SPAM simply because its irrelvant to me and I could not care less about that IT Security training seminar as a marketing manager. Similarly drawing the parallel to cold calling, I would be more than a little annoyed being called and invited to attend a conference on improving manufacturing processes or called by someone selling an accounting software solution. On the other hand, if I received an email again from an unknown company and an unknown person introducing on “Introducing our new instant landing page creation software for lead gen managers” I dont look at it as spam.  Even if  I’m not interested in buying it, the way I look at it is ‘it was addressed to the right person in our company’. It’s within my area of responsibility to evaluate such an application and its within my subject of interest as a B2B marketer. Similarly, I’m glad to talk to someone who cold called looking to see if our compnay was interested in a listing on their new B2B Marketing online directory even if at the end of the call we decide not to or that we are not interested at this point. It’s still within my area of responsibility and still related to my area of interest. 

In the first case I would say if the company had sent their email to someone responsible for our IT security, their email would have at least been read if not replied to. By sending it out to the marketing manager it was treated as spam. So is it spam when you dont know the sender or the senders company and you haven’t said you would like to receive an email from them? Or is it spam when even someone you have allowed to email you sends you something that is completely out of your sphere of interest? If you blocked out every new business contact that you have never heard of before from connecting with you through any channel… could you be missing out on some great opportunities? 

I still believe in trying to generate the best possible opt in and permission based lists and doing everything possible to get more opt in email addresses and build a strong internal list. I also believe that its not blasphemous to run an email campaign on a very well built target list where you know the person is the right person to connect with and if its done right. What would you define as spam? Whats not considered spam? Is knowing the sender and providing permission the only criteria or is there more to it?