[Re Loose Cannon: The High Cost of a Free Medium, Direct Newsline, May 19]:
Just wanted to say I enjoyed your article. You are right on and have a valid idea for enforcement, even though I don’t believe e-mail marketers would be too interested in anything that increases their out of pocket costs–even to their benefit.
Maybe an ROI analysis that shows the out-of-pocket expense would result in significantly higher response rates and sales [would provide a more convincing argument], which I have no doubt it would. It is really a shame that all this has happened as e-mail marketing can truly be the most powerful one-to-one marketing approach if only folks would use it wisely.
Thanks again and I will look forward to future articles.
Sharon Swendner
Director of Marketing
Anchor Computer
Farmingdale, New York
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We are a legitimate e-mailer, only to our opted in customer base. We spent a lot of time to make absolutely sure our list was clean and received in proper and upstanding measure to our base.
Given that, as we know the response to bulk email is hundreds of times lower than direct mail, the idea of a 5-cent surcharge-per-email makes it a completely useless communication media. If our direct mail campaign responses were that low, we would cease to exist, as would all direct marketers.
Hopefully this silly idea will be just media hype and fall the way of most stupid dot-com ideas.
The reason we choose e-mail as a communications device is to be an adjunct to our direct mail campaigns, and to create a small lift. The surcharge idea nullifies the lift, and would create a deficit. Companies like Google or Yahoo who sell click-through advertising would be the next to be charged, and the pay-per-click model would then collapse.
Joel Brazy
Full Compass Systems
Middleton, WI
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I have been pushing a similar idea, the “penny a piece” solution, for some time. Watching the FTC hearings on C-SPAN only confirmed my resolve that the “invisible hand” of the marketplace augmented by the sort of enforcement you recommend will solve the problem.
Terry Nugent
Director of Marketing
Medical Marketing Service Inc. (MMS)
Wood Dale, IL
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