Don’t you just hate them? 

There are very few absolutes in email marketing. It means you normally have to discover what’s hurting your RoI yourself, but some factors are obscure, and if everyone else does it, why shouldn’t you? That’s the mantra of failure. You have to find out what works for you.

I am a bit of a nerd. I take a notebook with me everywhere and keep it to hand when I’m writing, reading emails, and even just looking out of windows, to ensure any idea that flits across my mind is accessible a few hours later. This might be indicative of the way my brain is going, but it also means very few ideas are lost. I even rate them. My score goes from one to five, with a further ultimate being a large asterisk, sometimes even with a circle around it.

I flicked through it in order to see if there was a pointer for this brief blog and I was surprised to find the same two words a number of times, with one of my big circles only a couple of days ago. It says, in caps, NO ‘NO-REPLY’. I even indulged in an exclamation mark.

The question that comes to my mind whenever I get a non email marketing email, headed no-reply@email address is, ‘Why do they want to block communications?’ It’s something of an affront. A company has sent me an email and included the message that they can’t be bothered to listen to any reply or comment I might have. Who wouldn’t be irritated?

You should be encouraging the subscribers to your email marketing lists to send you their thoughts, ideas and concerns. If they think you’re not interested in them then why should they be interested in you? It is all too easy for them to click the unsubscribe button. If the reason you put no-reply in the address is that you don’t monitor that particular one, don’t use it.

No one wants to trawl through your website, look for the obscure Contact click through, and be presented by lots of FAQs. Make it easy for subscribers to send you emails.