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.

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.

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.

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.