What Alternatives Do Companies Have To SPAM?

peterjm writes: "I work for a company that does a lot of business on the Internet. Like most companies in similar situations, the marketing department occasionally sends out 'informational' messages to a database of addresses (once bought, now garnered from trade shows and webinars in exchange for the customary t-shirt). We recently sent out one such note and recieved a very harsh (but very true) response from some one who stated in no uncertain words that he no longer wished to receive such messages. This sparked a bit of debate on a few of the company mailing lists. My contention is that such messages receive a terribly adverse response from the Internet community at large. Not only that, but were we to find ourselves on the RBL, our business would all but come to a screeching halt. On the other side of the coin is the fact that we -need- to market our product. We have something to sell, and we obviously want to tell as many people as possible. Someone who stradles both the IS and Marketing groups posed the question, 'How do you propose that we market our products?' Well? What's the best way? How does a company market with effectiveness without pissing off the Internet in general?"

Comments

Viral marketing

[Metal Machine Music]

If you've got any sense, you'll find a way to market yourself without spam.

Viral marketing's probably the answer - you make people want to visit your site - and they are the ones forwarding it round the world, not you. Make people want to visit your website.

For example, you could investigate putting Flash or Java games on there, or giving free downloads of stuff like freeloader.com's free Grand Theft Auto 2. You could even write your own game, as the Dommelsch brewery did - a decent pinball game, available here.

The other way is to create an amusing email, animation or movie, implanted with your adverts, and then get people to forward it.

Finally, try publicity stunts, but be careful that they are things you want your company to be associated with.

You just answered it yourself

[scotpurl]

Since you put Marketing's "informational" message in quotes -- you, me, that park bench, and everyone else, ASIDE FROM MARKETING, realize that it wasn't informational at all. Marketing, however, sees it all as a message that the customer needs to see.

What's the goal of the message? To notify of a product recall? To announce a sale? To offer customers 20% off the next purchase? Building brand identity? Announcing a new VP of sales? Some of those are messages I /might/ welcome, and others are dubious, self-masturbatory marketing practices. As an example of companies that engage in masturbatory and mindless marketing spam to their customers, look no further than Verizon or Register.com -- both of whom have spammed me in the past 10 hours.

Here's an approach I'm recommended to my current customer site, for the purpose of spamming internal folks only. The marketing folks who will be spamming non-employees didn't like my pitch.

1. Accept that many folks view unsolicited email as a rude interruption, and a few of those will want to carve bombs out of pine cones, and mail them to the company. It's /their/ email, not yours.
2. If someone opts out, then they have opted out for life. Do not contact them unless your product will kill them. (Hear that, Verizon!)
3. Include a URL in the message to refer everyone back to. That URL is customized per-recipient, and you use that to control what they want to see. On all future mailings, if they want to unsubscribe, or change what sorts of mailings they get, you can then include it as a standard header and footer in your email.
4. If they don't click the URL, don't email them again for at least 6 months, but preferably not for a year. Once a year is plenty. We renew our magazine subscriptions annually, so this is kinda the same.
5. Replies to your spam go to a real, live person, whose sole job it is to protrate themselves before irate folks, and to assist them.

Finally, and this is the bix 6, MAKE SURE YOUR EMAIL HAS CONTENT. If it's just self-promotion, brand-awareness, or any other hyphenated-activity, then save the company some money and the hassle, and the customer the interruption, and don't @#!! send it. If the words "FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE" are any where on it, then it's not content. If the information will not make the customer happier, healthier, wealthier, or more productive, then it's not content.

To do it any other way is to treat your customers the same way passengers are treated by airlines.

Re:It's simple

[ptomblin]

then be polite enough to put a "PS:" at the end of your message and appologise for the inconvienience and promise not to misuse their emails anymore.

Speaking as somebody who gets 20-30 spams a day with insincere apologies at the end, I can guarantee that that sort of bullshit just makes people madder.

If you can't afford to advertise legitimately, then you can't afford to be in business. Period. If spamming is the only way to keep your company alive, then shut the doors, sell off your assets and find something more honest and legitimate to do. Like selling crack.

WTP - just go easy.

[Shimbo]

Frankly, I don't see the problem. If I give my mail address to a sales type and then get mailed it's not Spam. If I didn't want mail, then why give it to them?

I don't think any reasonable person could object to being mailed with a trailer saying: we mailed you because you stopped by our stand at Vapourware 2000; here are our latest product/contact details.

Make someone personally responsible for messages sent to your lists and the maintenance of the database. Publish full contact details. Make opting-out easy (or better still make it opt-in after the first message).

Whilst a rare few may get overexcited about junk mail, most people will be reasonable if they can see you are acting responsibly.

Re:WTP - just go easy.

[SEWilco]

If you're working only from lists of people who gave you their addresses, be polite in the use of them.

Mention how you got their address, to remind them that they gave you their address and to help them remember what was interesting about your company's products. Maybe they'll remember they only wanted the T-shirt (OK, so at least that's good for name recognition), or maybe they'll remember one of the six products at the booth was a nice four-port controller card for their industrial interface. This probably means inserting a mailing-list-descriptive paragraph in each message; include a proper paragraph in each of your mailing list databases so your text-processing software can insert it whenever the list is used. Make sure descriptions are ageless, such as "Fall Comdex 2000" rather than "a recent trade show".

Reference a web page and non-Web means for removal from the mailing list. On the Web page, have removal/inclusion options for ALL and for individual product categories. Some people won't want to hear about your data line drivers, but will want to hear about every POTS amplifier. You'll lose some, and you'll gain some. Include that web page in your normal web site for people who want to add themselves to your lists.

Use the lists once soon after they're collected, with news relevant to the items featured during the list collection. This will remind them that they provided their address and reminds them of whatever they were interested in. Invite people to opt-in to permanent lists of interest. Let the lists age and use them less as time goes on.

Retire older lists -- re-use them only for significant events, such as a corporate name change. With such a bolt from the blue, again issue the reminder of where the list came from and mention that they won't hear from you again except with similar major events. Mention the opt-in methods for people who want more frequent news.

Re:WTP - just go easy.

[radja]

if I am interested about 1 product, and ask for info about it, I am not necessarily interested in another product from the same company. I get email I didn't ask for. It's spam. and it will be reported to the RBL. It's time some companies went bankrupt specifically because of the RBL. It wouyld be a good signal sent out: spam is bad.. it can cost you..

//rdj

Try sponsering things

[bluGill]

I'm on a couple mainlings lists that have gone to sponsership programs. Once a week I get a message on the list with [SPONSER] in the subject. Easy to filter out, but I don't. This isn't Spam, this is advertising from a legitmate company that is supporting something I enjoy. The least I can do is skim the message, if I'm interesting in their product (and often I'm not - delete) it is a plus mark to me that they are supporting things I like. I won't nessicarly buy from them, but they jsut got one point over compititors.

It's simple: Steal

[SEWilco]

if your finances are limited and spam you must

How about "if your finances are limited and steal you must"? You're saying that theft of some form is acceptable if the thief is poor.

Re:Keeping a list of opt-outs

[cr0sh]

Ok, this is understandable - but something must be done to keep that list from being used as a mailing list (or resold as a mailing list)...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Jakob Nielsen's "Request Marketing"

[KjetilK]

First, please do not even consider spamming. I have become fiercly anti-spam after experiencing that the non-profit organizations I work nearly lost our net connection because the ISP that gave us free connectivity couldn't afford to keep us.

There are some very exciting ideas in Jakon Nielsen's Request Marketing-piece. If you can get this stuff working, it is truly different.

You answered your own question, if you looked.

[human bean]

most businesses seem to think they "don't need that new fangled contraption called the innernit." Exactly. You are selling a product that most businesses can live without. And they do.

I am sorry that you are in a business that is highly competitive and has traditionally had low profit margins. You do not fix this by advertising or marketing, ever. The only way to fix this is by changing the business itself.

Internet folks forget what the real world is like, as thay are often the type that want to retreat from it. If internet stopped tomorrow there would be a hue and cry, but the world would go on. Money would still move, goods would still ship, babies would be born, and old folks would get laid to rest. This is where the real world is, and this is where businesses REALLY make money.

The only internet busineese that are going to make it are the ones that understand this, and provide some addded value to a "real-time" person or product. Advertising and marketing (the great bulk of internet content) is not adding value. It is trying to increase sales by making up for a lack of value in the product, by changing people's minds and perceptions. If the product had tremendous value, it would sell with just the force of word-of-mouth.

Real world added value is difficult to deliver, as most of the world does not run on pure data. You cannot eat data, you cannot burn it to stay warm, and it won't keep you dry in the rain. But data (which the internet delivers) can be turned into information (people think about the data) and then used to affect the real world. The key is in getting people to think about the data and apply it.

Get a different business model. Work hard. Make millions. And don't spam. It is not cost effective in the long run.

Old News will destroy Google!

[Joe Groff]

Linux BeOS FreeBSD MacOS X QNX
SUB-20000 USER ID FOR FREE!

Something else for you to do...

[cr0sh]

I hate spam (gee, can you tell?) - but so far we have to live with it. The only spam I allow to go through is that in which the TO: contains my real email address. And half the time, that gets deleted as well.

Send only text messages - I hate adverts that have to spend time download crap from another site.

Put [adv] in the subject line, so that those who want to filter for advertisements can.

Put a real return address on it, and honor the requests from people who ask to be removed from the list - and actually remove them - don't just set a flag saying they were removed. Don't build up a second list, either.

Provide real contact info on the email - Name of company, address, phone numbers - in short, make it look like a professional piece of correspondance. Anything less is just crap.

Now, if you did this, and sent the email to me - would I like it, as it is obviously SPAM? Probably not, unless you were really selling something I wanted. But I would be more respectful toward the way you handled it than if you didn't...

Worldcom - Generation Duh!