The old marketing formula simply does not work. It used to be that a large brand like Ivory soap or Burger King could run advertising and see a proportional jump in their demand. The formula was simple. Spend lots of advertising money and spikes in revenue would occur.
The tragedy is that marketers try to overlay those rules onto today’s landscape. When they want an immediate jump in sales, they resort to spam tactics and buy lists without permission, send out email blasts and promote untimely offers. It is a violation of trust and the problem is that you are not in control. The buyer is in control. They have ways to block out your message with do not spam, do not call and do not mail.
What may be missed by the marketer is that they did not just lose some immediate opportunities, but they have lost a platform to connect with a future market. Your domain name is the most important asset you own in a connected Google economy. Your domain name is tracked when you send emails to recipients. If you send highly valuable content that is human readable, anticipated and permission-based, then you are building a connection. That connection exists because your audience gives it to you.
If you try and backdoor it or use gimmicks, then your domain becomes jeopardized. If enough Gmail, Hotmail or any other major Email Service Provider (ESP) detects your recipient spam tactics, then you will be blacklisted. Your domain reputation has become damaged. This reputation follows you and when you find that your messages, whether normal, benign messages or marketing messages, are not getting delivered, it is because your domain reputation has been damaged.
It takes a long time to rebuild your domain reputation, but you have effectively given up control of your reputation to the ESP’s out there. Their governance over email exchange and the reliability of your email being delivered serves to protect recipients.
One of the mantras we continually speak at AscendWorks is “No Gimmicks”. This is to combat the temptation for trying to spam the world whether via web spam or email spam. There are consequences now with increasing governance and coordination between system senders and recipients.
If you play by the rules and do the hard work of being substantive with world-class and knowledge-based content, then you have nothing to worry about. Your domain reputation will only increase and prosper over time.
Yes, it is hard work. Yes, there are no shortcuts. Yes, you should focus on building a real audience, not a spam list. The smarter web is about real value between brands and people that expect value.
So, how are you going to clean up your processes to ensure your reputation thrives?