Opt-In Email Vs. Bulk Email Spam

In the current business world there are many organizations that rely on spamming to create awareness about their products and services. Some companies send legitimate emails promoting legitimate products while others use this concept for malicious reasons. However, as a marketer it is important to know the difference.

Bulk email spam by definition refers to emails sent for commercial purposes without the consent of the receiver. Opt-in emails are defined as those emails sent for commercial purposes to individuals who have specifically requested to receive them. There are many benefits of opt-in email campaigns as opposed to bulk spam campaigns. Firstly you are sending your promotional emails to people who want to receive them. Therefore, ideally your conversion rates with opt-in emails should be higher. Other advantages of opt-in email campaigns include building long term relationships with customers, preserving your organization’s reputations as a non-spammer, lets you target your campaigns and shows customers that you and your company respect their privacy.

Although bulk spam emails have been worked in terms of boosting sales, they come with many disadvantages. Some of these disadvantages include a drop in conversion rates, drop in open and click rates, organization’s reputation at stake, unable to target the messages and inability to accurately measure the effectiveness of the email campaigns. Taking these facts in to consideration, it is clear that the advantages of opt-in email campaigns far outweigh those of bulk email spam campaigns.