I’ve just spent a considerable amount of time looking at email marketing!  Why?  Because one of our customers raised the obvious question “How successful are our emails at getting in front of our members?”

It turns out that a lot of their members use Gmail as the address they registered on their membership form.  And, once the member has signed up, the customer starts to send them their membership benefits / communications via email – meetings, publications, events, qualifications, statements … etc.

But, did you know that Google / Gmail WILL read all incoming and outgoing email?

Does this worry you / contravene any of your governance commitments / data protection agreements with your members?  Now you know that Gmail WILL read all emails, is it acceptable to communicate via email to members with Gmail accounts?

So the simple question “How successful are we at emailing to Gmail”, raises the serious question “Should we even be doing it”?