When the inbox isn't the inbox

There was a discussion today on the OI list about email filtering that brought up something I usually don’t mention in delivery discussions. Most email marketers treat the inbox as the holy grail of delivery. Everything about delivery is focused on getting to the magical inbox.
I think, though, that inbox is often just shorthand for “not landing in the bulk or spam folders.”
For some recipients, particularly those of us who get lots of mail, sometimes it’s better to land in a folder rather than the inbox. I have a folder set up, where most of my commercial mail goes. It’s labeled “commercial.” I check it once or twice a day.
This is beneficial to me and to the senders. Why? Because when I check that folder I’m ready to actually look at my commercial mail. I’m looking for those offers.
For someone like me, who does most of their work in their inbox, commercial interruptions are a problem. Commercial mail that ends up in my inbox, which can happen if I’ve been lazy about filters, interrupts me and usually doesn’t get read. But when it’s in my commercial folder? Well, then I can look at it, visit websites and make purchases.
So just remember, it’s not that you want mail in the inbox as much as you want mail somewhere that the recipient will notice it.

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Poor delivery can't be fixed with technical perfection

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In my own work with clients, I usually start with making sure all the technical issues are correct. As almost all spam filtering is score based, and the minor scores given to things like broken authentication and header issues and formatting issues can make the difference between an email that lands in the inbox and one that doesn’t get delivered.
I don’t think I’m alone in this approach, as many of my clients come to me for help with their technical settings. In some cases, though, fixing the technical problems doesn’t fix the delivery issues. No matter how much my clients tweak their settings and attempt to avoid spamfilters by avoiding FREE!! in the subject line, or changing the background, they still can’t get mail in the inbox.
Why not? Because they’re sending mail that the recipients don’t really want, for whatever reason. There are so many ways a sender can collect an email address without actually collecting consent to send mail to that recipient. Many of the “list building” strategies mentioned by a number of experts involve getting a fig leaf of permission from recipients without actually having the recipient agree to receive mail.
Is there really any difference in permission between purchasing a list of “qualified leads” and automatically adding anyone who makes a purchase at a website to marketing lists? From the recipient’s perspective they’re still getting mail they don’t want, and all the technical perfection in the world can’t overcome the negative reputation associated with spamming.
The secret to inbox delivery: don’t send mail that looks like spam. That includes not sending mail to people who have not expressly consented to receive mail.

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I was cleaning out my spam folder this afternoon. I try and do it at least once a day, otherwise the volume gets so bad I don’t actually look at the mail I just mark it all as read. I realized, though, that spamfilters are actually a marketer’s best friend.
If there were no spam filters keeping all the crap people get out of their inbox (in my case over 1000 messages a day) then spam would overwhelm even the most dedicated email junkie. I couldn’t do my job without my spam filters, and in fact the recent rash of virus spew is ending up in my inbox and making finding real mail a problem. I do a lot of sorting before mail ever hits my inbox, and I’m still struggling to deal with the couple hundred “your order has shipped!” and “please her tonight!” emails that my local bayesian filters haven’t caught up to, yet.
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