I heard some muttering a couple of weeks ago over a Mediapost article suggesting that the email marketing arena is full of incompetent, potentially criminal idiots.  The hand-wringing and whining has centered around the choice of tone for that article.  If Mediapost was looking for some publicity out of this, they certainly got it.

In the comments section of that article, we see some complaining about painting everyone with the same brush.  And, hey, no one likes to be lumped in with another group.

The thing that we have to be aware of is not only that we are guilty of the same thing, but that so is everyone else.  Don’t believe me?  Well, then, read on.

First of all, think about yourself.  When was the last time that you referred to “the receivers” or “the receiving community”?  That’s this broad brush that we don’t like to be painted with.  Not all receivers are the same.  Not all administrators at all ISPs or other receivers would make the same decisions given the same set data.

Second, understand that the brush is wide for a reason.  The people who make filtering decisions spend all day long looking at data, only that data.  When you consider the data that they are looking at, there are two or three common characteristics to large percentages of it:

1. It is marketing.
2. It is phishing.
3. It is illegal (whether that be virus-laden, or mail that doesn’t comply with CAN-SPAM).

And there one characteristic it all shares: It is generating complaints.

And I can hear many of you saying, “But, that doesn’t describe MY mail!”  And that may just be true.  But, there is another question that I hear from people at filter providers, and ISPs:

“What are you doing to convince everyone else to do things right?  When are you standing up to everyone who is wanting to do things wrong?”

And by “everyone” they actually mean “everyone.” They mean friends, colleagues, and competitors alike.

Not long ago, I got a message from someone saying that they liked how I was willing to call someone out who was offering bad advice.  And I’m flattered that someone feels I’m influential enough to compliment me like that, but I have to wonder….

Why do we spend so much time talking our companies and ourselves up, and giving ourselves fun group names like “snob” and “gurus” than we do calling out the bad ideas and talking about how they’re bad or calling up the great ideas and talking about how they’re good — even if our competitor is doing it?

Do you want people to stop painting all email marketers with the same brush?  Then draw a steep, deep, dark line showing what you think best acceptable practices are.  Then hold everyone to it, friend and competitor alike.