December 13, 2006
Press Release

New Study on Corporate Spam Email Filters and Blacklists: B-to-B Marketing Emails Likely to Be Filtered By Mistake

SUMMARY: No summary available.
December 12, 2006 -- Warren RI: Research firm MarketingSherpa Inc. announced today the publication of a new study titled, 'Email Filters & Blacklists in Corporate America: B-to-B Marketing Email Deliverability'. Based on new research conducted in partnership with KnowledgeStorm, the study was published as part of MarketingSherpa's Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007, available at:
http://EmailMarketingGuide07.MarketingSherpa.com

The study features survey answers from 513 executives working at corporations with 500 or more employees concerning their use of whitelists, filters and email list-joining habits. Respondents were asked detailed questions concerning their use of whitelists, company spam filters, junk mail filters, and email receipt at work. The goal - to determine if corporations' use of blacklists and spam filters is stopping 'wanted email' (defined as email the executive has sign up for).

Results revealed that 100% of respondents' IT departments have put filters in place to stop spam from entering the workplace. However, many of these filters place too much reliance on unregulated blacklists and content-based filtering to be able to do a good job of discerning spam email from desired email.

ISPs and online email services such as Hotmail, Yahoo email and Earthlink have enabled users to easily whitelist email from desired senders so mail gets through. However, according to the MarketingSherpa study, only a few corporations allow internal email users to whitelist senders easily. In fact, many executives in corporate America have no idea how to make sure the email they want to receive gets through.

"We've known for three years now that the false positive rate for corporate America is roughly double the rate of consumer email. It's doubly hard for a business-to-business marketer to conduct effective email campaigns. This study begins to point to reasons why, and gives some hope for the future," notes MarketingSherpa President Anne Holland.

"This study confirms what many marketers have long suspected when it comes to email marketing campaigns--while the message is critically important, there are more technologically sophisticated hurdles between your message and its intended recipient," said Heather Foster, director of marketing, KnowledgeStorm. "Email marketing campaigns must blend good strategy and effective messaging with a distribution partner who is capable of reaching your recipients and navigating spam filters, blacklists and junk mail filters. We expect that this study will provide some insight and guidance to marketers who are faced with this daunting task."

About KnowledgeStorm

KnowledgeStorm is the Internet's top-ranked search resource for technology solutions and information. Leveraging the KnowledgeStorm Network of premier partners and its extensive search expertise, KnowledgeStorm is able to reach technology buyers and deliver the information they need no matter where their search begins. KnowledgeStorm, with its network, search expertise and performance tools and services, is a powerful resource for technology vendors, providing them the most opportunities to reach buyers on the Internet and convert them into Web leads. For more information, call (877) 340-9274 or visit www.knowledgestorm.com.

About MarketingSherpa

Each week 237,000 marketing professionals read MarketingSherpa's latest Case Studies and research reports. The award-winning research firm also produces the annual Email Marketing Summit, scheduled next for March 4-6th in Miami.

More information about the MarketingSherpa's newly published Email Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007 is at:
http://EmailMarketingGuide07.MarketingSherpa.com


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