I have written before about the tricks that are used in promoting email lists, and we seem to be in a new period of these.

A number of companies that sell email lists are encouraging recipients of emails to open an email or click on a link by saying that the individual will be entered in a weekly or monthly draw.

The net result of this is that people do tend to stay on the email list (rather than unsubscribe) and click on lots of emails, not because they are reading anything, but rather because they are hoping to win the regular lottery.

One other side effect of this approach is that it allows the company owning the email list the chance to mail the list over and over again – sometimes daily, sometimes several times a day.

The unsubscribe rate stays low, and the open or click through rate stays high, again because of artificial means – whereas normally heavy emailing results in people unsubscribing.

In other words, while we normally use the unsubscribe rate as a measure of reader dissatisfaction with the promotions, and we use the open and click through rate as a measure of interest, these connections are destroyed.

A really exciting headline which in a non-manipulated mailing might get a very high open rate and lead to a lot of click throughs, will now get a rate that is similar to every other email – because it is the arrival of the email that triggers the click (in order to enter the prize draw for free) rather than the content of the email.

I will fully admit to a bias in this matter because Hamilton House doesn’t use this technique, and we have always thought it an approach which distorts the effectiveness of the email.  Obviously those who do use the “reward for clicking” approach, will argue that it is nothing of the kind, and that it simply encourages people to open the emails.

Only a detailed comparison between a promotion undertaken with a “prize draw for clicking” list and one undertaken with a list not subject to this approach would give an answer, and I don’t think that this has ever been done.

My concern is the prize for clicking approach does tend to reveal a much higher number of email addresses than otherwise would be the case, since it encourages people to subscribe to the list many times over.

In the end sales are the only absolute measure of course.

There’s details of the Hamilton House email lists (all mailed without incentives to click) on www.yesmail.co.uk or do give me a call on 01536 399 000

Tony Attwood