Do not you send spam?

In the comments to the previous post, a serious dispute broke out, from which it can be concluded that not everyone sees the difference between “spam” and the normal distribution.

What is spam?

There is no single official definition of spam. The one that is taken in Spamhaus is closer to me:

Spam is unsolicited bulk email.

The message is spam if the subscriber did not give a conscious , explicit consent to receive the newsletter, from which you can unsubscribe at any time. An imperceptible, default check mark next to the email input field is unconscious and implicit consent, and therefore spam.
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To check if your mailing is spam, answer three questions:

Is the user consciously subscribed to the newsletter?

(and whether subscribed at all)

Yes. Great, but still too early to relax.

Not. Your newsletter is “spam”. No options.

There is only one exception to this rule - you send the user important information for him and at the same time he is your client.

To make it clearer, I will give an example:

A customer bought access to an online webinar, but the time was postponed for an hour. In this case, it is quite normal and even good if you send a message with a notification, and after the webinar has passed - a record or additional materials that were referred to and promised to send.

Warn the user that you will keep up to date on the change of time and send materials even before he specifies his email address.

If you answered yes to the previous question, then move on.

Does your letter have a formal reply link?

Yes. Congratulations, you have a legal mailing list, but this does not mean that it is not spam.

Not. One informed consent to receive mailing is not enough. The absence of the unsubscribe link is a sufficient condition for getting into the black list of Spamhaus or another database.

If you answered affirmatively to the two previous questions, then the rules established by Spamhaus, CAN-SPAM Act, etc. you performed. From a legal point of view, there will be no complaints about you, and if someone complains to the spam base for the newsletter, you can get it out of the black list.

But this is not enough. The user, at his own discretion, can send a letter to the “spam” folder, which will adversely affect your reputation and rating with the mail client.

In order for subscribers to send messages to spam less often, the content you send must be relevant.

Relevance is a controversial and abstract concept. It is impossible to say unequivocally that if the content corresponds to certain characteristics, then it is relevant. For one part of the audience, he really will be, for the other not.

Content can be called relevant if the subscriber finds it informative, attractive, useful or entertaining. Ideally, the content that you send out benefits, carries some value, and most importantly - the subscriber wants to see it in the mailbox.

Do you send relevant content?

Yes. If here you answered yes, congratulations, your letters are not spam.

I think so. It is a common mistake of marketers to measure the interests of the target audience by themselves and assume that if I am interested in something, then my customers too. In most cases this is not the case. If you are not 100% sure that this content is of interest to your audience, send it with caution, watch the open and spam rate indicators over time.

Not. Even if users have subscribed to your newsletter, it does not mean that they want to receive it. Just at some point for some reason they gave you permission to do that. Perhaps the mailing did not meet their expectations and now it is spam for them.

If you see that the mailing list spam rate is above average or grows from letter to letter, try to find out the cause as soon as possible and eliminate it.