Spam does not just hurt the spam-ee. It is also destroying the spammers, their customers, and the entire effort to turn e-mail marketing into a legitimate business.

The reason isn't in your cluttered inbox, but in a simple falsehood. The falsehood is that spam costs nothing. (The picture is of a good book on writing for direct marketing, which you may buy here.)

Everyone believes this lie. Spammers certainly believe it. Their customers believe it. So, too, do those brand names that run "e-mail marketing campaigns."

More important, so do very legitimate marketers engaged in very legitimate double opt-in e-mail marketing campaigns.

Even legendary marketers are failing to understand this Clue. Let me give you an example.

I am a big fan of Drew Kaplan. Drew is the creator of the "DAK Catalog," which used direct mail to revolutionize the consumer electronics business in the 1990s. (He once revealed to me that its demise was the product of the 1997 "Asian Contagion," since he was banking where his goods came from.)

Long story short, DAK came back. He came back with a wonderful double opt-in list, and an online catalog.

But he has made one big mistake. He fails to "age" the list, he fails to "purge" the list, and he fails to impute a real cost to e-mailing his list, because he doesn't see this cost on his books.

How do I know?

I know because I've been getting DAK's mailings for a few years now, and there's something I'm not getting that I should be getting. That is, the "threatening letter" on the top of the mailing. "Dear Friend," it might say, "we want to keep sending you this valuable information but in order to afford that you have to buy something."

Then, if the subscriber doesn't buy something, cut him off.

This is a common bit of direct mail discipline. The discipline is followed for a very good reason. It costs over $1 to send someone a letter with a marketing offer. It costs even more to send a catalog. Direct mail marketers are very conscious of these costs. Thus they are constantly tweaking and trimming their lists, looking for lists that will perform, dropping names that don't perform. It's an art, and a science. Those who are good at it can make a fortune, and these are rare, wonderful individuals.

It's past time for e-mail marketers to start taking this discipline seriously. It's a simple program:

• Impute a cost to every e-mailing, equivalent to what you pay to mail something on paper.
  
• Create real value in every e-mailing (as DAK does), providing tips, editorial, something people will be anxious to get.
  
• Match results to names.
  
• Tell those who don't buy they will be dropped if they don't support the mailing. If they still refuse, drop 'em.
  
• Only advertise on small, double opt-in lists, and offer something of value to anyone who signs up.
  
• Don't send something to your list unless it's important, to you and to them.
  
• Maintain editorial discipline. If you're about cats, don't send offers about dogs, and vice versa.
  
• Identify with your reader as a magazine editor would. Understand them, be their advocate.
  

The secret to e-mail marketing, in the end, is the same as in any other form of direct mail. Make yourself valuable, target your customer, maintain discipline.

Do that and you won't only solve your business problem. You will help solve the spam problem as well.