The Pontiflex Blog

Basketball spam?

March 25, 2010 at 3:44 pm Jason Penta Leave a comment

March Madness is in full swing and chances are you or someone you know has done an NCAA bracket this year.  There are certainly a few floating around the office here at Pontiflex.  I thought I’d share an email I got from FanHouse/Sobe Lifewater that struck my “best practices” nerve.

Take a look at the email below:

Is this spam?  Yes and no.

Email is all about engagement: getting users to interact with your brand.  There are a ton of ways to engage users through email.  Here are few ways that Fanhouse (and Sobe Lifewater) could have improved the messaging on this email:

1. From Address: Your from address should indicate where the email is coming from.  While this one does indicate the sender, no-reply@fanhouse.com doesn’t do much to start the engagement process.
2. Personalization: Although email is often sent in large quantities, it should speak to each individual recipient in some way.  Most readily, this is done by addressing the recipient by first name.  Not only did this email not address me by name, it also never indicated what “friend” invited me to the bracket challenge.  Had it read “Jason, your friend Anthony invited you to….”  I would have been much more responsive to the message.
3. Unsubscribe Info: Perhaps the biggest offense in the email is the lack of traditional Can-Spam compliance details, such as an opt-out link and physical address.  While unsubscribe info is not required on transactional emails (confirmation emails, order receipts, etc.), that rule only applies when a user has already interacted with your brand in some way.  In this case, “a friend” suggested that I join the Bracket Challenge, so there was no prior direct interaction between me and the mailer.

As you can see, even legitimate email can come across as spam if you don’t follow the proper guidelines for informing and engaging your recipient.  Emails that clearly provide all relevant information upfront generally garner the best responses.  In this case, a friend actually did invite me to his bracket challenge.  Unfortunately, this email never made it past the “mark as spam” button for me.

Entry filed under: Best Practices, Email. Tags: .