Consumers seem to respond much differently to marketing materials they receive through email compared to what they receive through the mail or other marketing channels. Regardless of opt-in status or established business relationship, if consumers are not actively engaged or interested in the message received, email marketing is often considered intrusive and marked as spam.

According to a March survey on typical email subscriber behavior by Chicago’s Q Interactive and MarketingSherpa, 56 percent of consumers consider email messages spam if the content is not interesting. This means your small business email marketing messages, even if complying with permission-based best practices, will be reported as spam.

Most consumers hold the email messages they receive to a higher standard than those sent through more traditional marketing channels, meaning more careful consideration and planning must be put into creating the content of an effective email marketing campaign. Most subscribers are largely unfamiliar with what marking an email message as spam means or does. Subscribers won’t remember that the opted in to receive your small business email marketing back in May 2007. In today’s consumer-centric society, consumers are most concerned with the “here and now.” If your email marketing is annoying them right here and right now, they will mark it as spam.

Improving your small business’ email marketing ROI involves the right combination of a variety of variables: the best email marketing vendor, the right ESP, the permission-based email marketing list. But one of the most important and most overlooked components is the importance of compelling, relevant content.