Terra Marketing Group Encourages Companies To Avoid Deceptive Email Practices

Online, October 13, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Today, leading Internet marketing company, Terra Marketing Group, urged other companies in their industry to avoid using spam and other unethical email marketing practices because they feel it will hurt their industry.
"Online marketing is built on trust," Jennifer, a company spokesman said. "As more and more companies start using deceptive email marketing practices, that trust is eroded. In the long term this could kill our entire industry."
Terra Marketing Group was founded in November 2009 and has grown steadily since. They specialize in looking at emerging sections of the market and then finding ways to improve the products and services offered. This has allowed them to gain market dominance in multiple revenue channels.
The company said they understood why some companies use spam and deceptive practices, because they do increase short-term profits. On the other hand, they said, these profits come at a very high cost.
"Email is the most intimate form of online communication," Jennifer said. "Therefore people can be motivated to purchase from it. But because it is so intimate, people can feel very violated when they are deceived. Once that level of trust is gone, it will never come back."
People who have been burned by these types of emails tend not only to refuse to do business with that company again, but also to stop reading any commercial messages sent to them by any other online company.
"This is really a case when a couple bad apples can spoil the entire barrel," Jennifer said.
The company then issued a set of guidelines they feel every player in the online marketing industry should follow:
•Only send emails to people who have agreed to hear from your company.
•Make it easy for people to opt-out of your messages.
•Don't sell email lists to third parties.
•Don't flood people with emails. Only send one when you have a reasonable offer.
•Don't use email-masking software. People have a right to know who is contacting them.
•Use honest subject lines and headlines. Don't trick people into opening or reading your emails.
"These guidelines are very simple and can help save our industry," Jennifer said. "We don't want to reach a point where email advertising becomes completely ineffective because we have destroyed consumer confidence and trust."