Opt-in? Big deal. Consumers are becoming more and more impervious to the mail that actually gets into the inbox. Thus, the need for quality and relevance in commercial email messages persists. To illustrate, if an opted-in consumer keeps getting pounded with similar, unrelenting offers day after day, there is a fair chance they will ignore them. An even better chance exists that they will report the messages as spam or move them to the junk folder. The long and arduous journey to the inbox will be rendered meaningless by the marketer losing focus on the will of the consumer.

The 2008 MarketingSherpa/Q Interactive Email Marketing Benchmark Guide confirms that the definition of “spam” is growing in the minds of consumers. While the main reason consumers classify messages as spam is not opting in, nearly half of study participants report “uninteresting” opt-in messages as spam as well.

According to eMarketer.com, inbox overcrowding, improved filtering, and a perceived increase in the amount of mail messages received have caused consumers to question the relevance of opt-in messages. It may be easy to find a way past the filters once or twice, but providing genuine value to the consumer is the only way to garauntee deliverability in the long run.