The Greenhouse Effect

In his Mediapost article last week, Loren McDonald yet again provided us with some 'what not to do's' and encouraged we email marketer's to pick up our acts, saying:  "Email is a global village. Marketers who do stupid things mess it up for everyone". 

Additionally, Jordan Ayer posted this blog which is very much along the lines of a DMA blog I wrote awhile back. Jordan ends his blog with: "Irresponsible mailing could easily kill the Golden Goose, and along with it many legitimate mailers who are using the medium responsibly."

This is a song I've been singing for awhile now, however I tend to view it as being like the Greenhouse Effect....the things we do or don't do today, ARE going to affect the future of email marketing.

Now I'm not a pessimist - far from it, and currently email marketing is a very healthy and profitable channel. But if we were to all to implement Best Practices for email marketing within our own email marketing programs, then we will all be doing our best to ensure it stays the wonderful, high ROI channel it is well into the future.

Comments

[Neil]

Very good analogy.

Another one might be the "tragedy of the commons." Since email marketing is done in the public sphere many people feel free to abuse it and they risk ruining it for everyone *including* themselves.