Bronto Blog

Almost a year ago, I blogged about Bacn - “email that you want, just not right now.”  The determination of whether or not something is considered bacn is made at the individual (user/consumer/subscriber) level. The consumer chooses to delete, ignore, or mark that “irrelevant” email as spam.

However, often an email can land in the junk folder without the individual doing anything at all. As marketers, this can be very frustrating. Sometimes marketers send out “the perfect email” and it still lands in the bulk folder. Recently, a Bronto Blog subscriber posted an “Ask the Expert” question (abridged version below):

“I have just coded my first HTML email…but when I tested it on Outlook 2007 on a computer in my office, it went straight to the junk folder, stripped to plain text, etc…I read somewhere that if there are links to too many different URL’s it can be interpreted as spam. How many is too many? What other filter criteria might be affecting my email? I was careful not to include “spammy” language.”

That brings us to the $1,000,000 question:

Why do “good” emails sometimes get marked as “bad?” Read the rest of this entry »

First there was Spam. Spam Spam Spam Spam Spammity Spam. Now…Bacn. No, that is not a typo. Bacn (sans “o”) is the term - coined back in August 2007 - for “email that you want, just not right now.” It’s a great way of identifying email that you signed up for and are interested in, but when it reaches your inbox, you shout out…

• “I’m too busy…no time to read it now. I’m sure I won’t miss much in just one email.”
• “I really should read this - why…I’ll just block off some time next Thursday!”
• “There’s just too much going on! I can’t take it anymore!!! Help…”

….and a potentially valuable email gets vaporized. If this sounds familiar, congratulations, you now understand bacn. It’s those emails you signed up for and wanted to receive but you’ve since pushed it into email purgatory (limbo) - suspended between your inbox and spam hades. The email doesn’t belong in your spam folder because it’s good stuff, but it doesn’t sit in your inbox long enough to make a noticeable impression.

Some love this new buzzword. Others loathe it. Either way, it is gaining some momentum, and email marketers need to be aware. Bacn has an unofficial website, was written up in NPR and the NYTimes, and is being discussed in the blogosphere - Mark Brownlow of Email Marketing Reports, Chad White at RetailEmail.Blogspot, Gmail Blog.

Now you are in the know. Welcome to the club. Think about how bacn could skew your metrics, especially open rates.

Bacn - it’s not just another meat, it’s a new way of life for an email marketer trying to make sense in this crazy world.

DJ Waldow
Account Manager at Bronto