In the world of email marketing and mortgage related services it has always been difficult to reach the end consumer. Because a large majority of spam is mortgage related it can be difficult at times to reach your targeted consumer. With many email spam filters scanning subject headers for key words like “low rates”, “Mortgage refinance”, etc many of your emails may be ending up in people’s junk mail folders.

With that in mind is mass email marketing still successful? The answer in short would be yes but the successfulness of these campaigns is diminishing. Meaning you need to send a larger batch of emails to a larger list to receive the same amount of inquiries that you may have had to send a year or two ago. According to an article posted by ClickZ stats, “Computer Users More Savvy About E-mail Spam” , people are more likely not to open junk mail and obtain a greater ability to decipher what is spam email and what is not. Are these customers completely accurate with their judgments? No, and because of this many of your auto respond emails do not get opened. Because of this you can not assume that an email is a contact with a customer. Each LO must follow up on all email communications with a phone call to ensure that they have received the email. Once initial emails have been received and opened the likely hood of it going back into the Junk mail folder decreases.

Another note concerning mass email marketing, the FTC is becoming more and more strict with their email restrictions. If you are currently participating in mass email marketing, in house or with a third party company, it would be in your best interest to view the FTC “Advertising and Marketing on the Internet: Rules of the Road”. According to this article “third parties such as advertising agencies or website designers and catalog marketers also may be liable for making or disseminating deceptive representations if they participate in the preparation or distribution of the advertising, or know about the deceptive claims”. Meaning if you outsource a mass marketing campaign and it is not compliant you may be liable and could potentially be sued. Also your domain, if used could be blocked from the major email portals and could lead to a disruption in your overall business operations.

 Email marketing is effective. However if you plan to participate in these tactics you must educate yourself on the rules and guidelines before you begin. It is also extremely important to partner yourself with companies that have the professional knowledge and experience to keep you away from these types of pitfalls.
Education is key.