What is Spam?

I am going to start of by answering the question “What is spam?” and then I am going to talk to you about a disturbing a trend on the web related to the definition of spam.

Here is the ORIGINAL definition of spam:

“Unsolicited email”

Simply stated spam is email you receive from someone that you have never agreed to receive from them.

How is the definition of spam changing?

In the first chapter of Sylvie Fortin’s ebook, “Internet Marketing Sins”, Sylvie discussed a recent report by Marketing trends about spam. Apparently the definition of spam is changing…

According to the report:

Most consumers don’t accurately comprehend the term “spam”:

• Over half of survey participants – 56% – consider marketing messages from known senders to be spam if the message is “just not interesting to me.”
• 50% of respondents consider “too frequent emails from companies I know” to be spam.
• 31% cite “emails that were once useful but aren’t relevant anymore.”

Regarding the use of the “report spam” button – the primary tool that internet service providers (ISPs) provide consumers to counter spam – nearly half of respondents (48%) provided a reason other than “did not sign up for email” for reporting an email as spam.

Respondents cited various non-permission-based reasons for hitting the spam button:

• “The email was not of interest to me” (41%).
• “I receive too much email from the sender” (25%).
• “I receive too much email from all senders” (20%).

When I first read the above survey, I was TOTALLY shocked!

Apparently, people are EXTREMELY misinformed on the meaning spam. I occasionally have people unsubscribe from my newsletter who cite the reason for leaving as “spam”. I am always dumbfounded by that response. I mean seriously…

If you sign up for a newsletter and you get the newsletter the only way you can legitimately call it spam is if you don’t know the definition of spam.

Long story short, the Internet is becoming more and more challenging for marketers. If double opt-in newsletters are being called spam, what’s next? Will blogging of any sort be called spam? Will all advertising messages be called spam? It wouldn’t surprise me at all… would it surprise you?