Title: Its 2005----Bulk Email Is Dead Word Count: 1802 Summary: -------------------------- A typical day at the inbox -------------------------- Today, I received 374 e-mails total. A pretty light day considering some days I get more than 1,000. To clarify what they were--35 were for business, 4 were personal in nature, 11 were from groups I asked to get information from like Neiman Marcus and Urban Outfitters, VH1, and a PR Newsletter. The balance of 324 was unsolicited (UCE-unsolicited commercial e-mail)--in other words sp... Keywords: bulk, email, marketing, online marketing, strategies, Article Body: -------------------------- A typical day at the inbox -------------------------- Today, I received 374 e-mails total. A pretty light day considering some days I get more than 1,000. To clarify what they were--35 were for business, 4 were personal in nature, 11 were from groups I asked to get information from like Neiman Marcus and Urban Outfitters, VH1, and a PR Newsletter. The balance of 324 was unsolicited (UCE-unsolicited commercial e-mail)--in other words spam. If I extrapolate the UCE I’ve gotten in the last six hours alone, I find I must be missing something about myself on some spiritual level.. I am a balding, fat man with a small penis that doesn’t work. I am in debt. I am looking for a lower interest rate on my mortgage while at the same time making thousands of dollars with no effort on my part in the privacy of my own home—filling out surveys, stuffing envelopes and not selling something that miraculously sells itself. Even better, I can be a travel agent without wrinkles; obtain a college degree while waiting for my 1500 advance to show up in my bank account; I can restore my credit rating legally while watching my free satellite TV and munching on my drugs sent courtesy of an offshore pharmacy that has a doctor who will write me a prescription… HMMM…definitely something to consider. NOT. I’ve also discovered that I am a prime candidate to help an African Prince transfer funds into the US. He trusts me. All I have to do is give him my bank account information. The problem is that I am a woman who doesn’t suffer those ills. Someone thinks I do…There is something wrong with this picture. ------------------------------------------------------------ The future of bulk email and why it is likely to remain dead ------------------------------------------------------------ Now, you might be asking why I, who was dubbed the “Spam Queen” in the “Wall Street Journal” three years ago, am even bothering to say anything about e-mail? Just to set the record straight, I have never advocated spam or sending spam. One reporter said to me, "Some people consider all bulk email as spam. What do you have to say about that?" to which I replied, "Then I guess you'd call me the spam queen," as a joke. In our sound byte media world, one editor turned this little quip into a buzzword and I became known almost instantly, all over the world, as representing what everyone, including myself, hates about email. The media as usual emphasized sensationalism and missed the point. I am not complaining because my marketing business skyrocketed as a result. At that time I advocated email as a very effective medium for small business, which because of its low cost lets small businesses level the playing field against big corporations. At no small personal risk, I visited the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, DC, and spoke my peace about small businesses and not throwing out the baby with the bathwater before even the very term spam could be legally agreed upon and defined to the satisfaction of marketers, ISPs and the government jointly. Small businesses are the lifeblood of the US economy, and entrepreneurs with their dreams are what have made the US the economic powerhouse it still is today. Email that is sent to people who WANT to receive it, and that is in accordance with their preferences, still gets a high response. It allows many small businesses to get ahead. I didn't want to see big corporations or the government take over email and bar entry, filter, and extort everyone else while still sending their own advertising messages freely. And then came the Can-Spam act, which I and many other legitimate marketers welcomed, because it had a great promise of getting rid of the noise while keeping the signal. As it turned out, the opposite happened. Email filters from ISP's now block a large amount of legitimate messages, which they call "false positives". Marketers can't send the text they would like to send to their subscribers, so they have to resort to filter tricking tactics such as spelling the word spam as sp@@@M