It's another indication that e-mail can be a real crutch in cultivating media contacts: A recent survey by Washington, D.C.-based Mindshare Interactive Campaigns shows
requested e-mails continue to be incorrectly identified as spam - and at a growing rate. In the first quarter of this year, for example, 27% of e-mails did not reach their
intended recipients' boxes compared with 19% during the same period in 2004. Since the beginning of 2005, Mindshare has been conducting an ongoing survey of e-mail sending habits
of 77 advocacy, nonprofit, media and political organizations.
Asked how PR execs can enhance their e-mails so they're not mistaken for spam, Sahbbir Safdar, Mindshare's chief technology officer, says: "PR professionals need to start
looking at the results of deliverability of their own press releases and ask themselves the questions, 'Why did these communications make it past the filters? Why did these get
stopped?'" He adds: "It's a whole new world and, if you aren't working with a deliverability professional, you're not being fully effective." Here are some of the other key
findings from the study:
- More than one in four legitimate e-mails are misclassified as spam.
- The rate of misclassified e-mails continues to rise.
- Sending frequency directly relates to deliverability.
- Internet Service Providers (ISPs) classify and misclassify spam through different methods.
Source: Mindshare Interactive Campaigns