Is Your Email Service About to Can You?

My news feed pulled in a post from ActiveRain this morning, and a member was advising others to move away from a popular bulk email service provider. It seems that this member's account was closed because recipients had marked some of his emails as spam in their system.

I'm not sure how many, though he stated that it was two or three. The number doesn't really matter, as it's whatever math they choose to apply before they mark an account as a spammer. It probably wasn't even anything the member did wrong. People forget about past opt-in to get information, and the spam button may be easier to locate than the "unsubscribe" button or link.

The problem is only going to grow, as that's the way the Web and consumers are moving. They just don't like the amount of marketing email they're getting. The average consumer is getting better at social networking and RSS news feeds. They find content that is really valuable to them, and they ask to receive it. It isn't pushed at them, but pulled into their email or feed reader by their action.

Though I may sound like a broken record, the successful real estate marketer will be blogging and providing local area real estate and interesting content that site visitors value. They'll subscribe to the blog's RSS feed, or an email newsletter if they don't yet use feeds (90+% do not right now). The canned drip emails, written months to a year before, or purchased from a bulk email service, are going to go away over time. "Marketing Your Home With Good Smells" emails do smell to most recipients.